Killer Instinct VS Strategy Guide

So I figured with my Recent blog Deep Blue VS Gargos (Which you should Definitely Go Check Out if you haven’t), I may as well note down all the KI Info I needed for one of these while I’m at it to hit two birds with one stone. So I hope you enjoy learning How To Be OP in Killer Instinct.

Town-City Tier:

This tier would be considered the Minion Tier, containing mostly characters who serve a master or large groups of warrior classes, all the fighters mentioned here WERE on par with the higher up characters but have no evidence they received any of the upgrades after the Shadow Lords event so now are relegated to low tier level. Characters within this tier are in the Low Megatons range of power due to scaling to the early Tusk making a 30 ton Meteorite Impact the ground at highly MHS speeds, as well as Massively Hypersonic from feats of flying to distant areas of the earth and timing both lightning and satellite laser cannons. 

This tier includes Ultratech’s two most common attack forces, Fulgore Models and Stalker Units, the most well known being the prime Fulgore with Eagle’s mind and Riptor, leader of the stalker pack. Fulgore’s powers include bullet, radiation, electric, plasma and laser based attacks which he can use physically up close and fired from a distance, and couples that with a lot of good support abilities like Invisibility, Attack Reflection, Teleportation and Flight. Riptor on the other hand has numerous types of mouth based projectiles including a powerful fire breath, corrosive acid spit and venom spit too. She has keen super senses enough to smell blood from miles away, human intelligence, a sharp extendable drill tail, and plasma claws and teeth that are literally laced with the flesh eating virus.

Moving away from science and into the magic aspects, this tier contains Gargos’ Omens, logia beings made of Shadows, who can fly, stretch, fire danmaku, possess people and even nullify a good deal of their opponents powers. You also have to deal with the Assassin Sadira, who after being mutated with a magical spider, can now generate Spider Webbing to trap foes and increase mobility while she attacks with blades, poison and telekinesis.

But the most diverse fighter you have to deal with here is Spinal, the undead zombie pirate. Spinal has numerous powers like shooting ghost skull projectiles, using telekinesis to reform himself or blow people to pieces, summoning lightning, shapeshifting into his foes complete with their moves, teleportation and summoning the dead or even giant skeletal body parts to aid him in combat. He's also got haxy weapons in the form of a Shield that magically absorbs projectile attacks and stores the energy to blast back, and a Sword that cuts foes on the physical AND Astral plane.

So what are some strategies that will work here? Well what I see when I look at this tier’s fighters is an extremely hyper aggressive verse, they focus a lot on being fast and having a variety of very damaging attacks not just physically but also taking advantage of poison, disease, soul hax and mental attacks. Their tendency toward rushdown strategy is very clear as nearly all of their other abilities are increasing their mobility, teleportation and flight so you can’t run, webbing and power nullification so you are more slowed down compared to them, super senses so you can’t hide and invisibility so they can get you before you prepare. But what is typical of foes using these strategies is that they are Glass Cannons, the only defensive ability these characters have are attack reflection, and even that won’t be effective if they are out paced or surprised.

For other weaknesses, the characters in this tier either use technology or some form of dark magic so having powers around manipulating or countering that would work great, also, none of the characters in the tier are particularly smart, so intelligent characters would also be ideal.

Ideally you would want a character really well equipped to defend against their attacks, or prevent them from getting close altogether to stop their rushdown strat, as well as have some potent ability to take them down despite their mobility. Having Anti Stealth and some method of dealing with a large amount of foes is also a plus. A prime Example of this would be,

Kneesocks Daemon:

Kneesocks from the Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt series would really work well to this strategy. Kneesocks is an evil equivalent to Stocking Anarchy, who is fast enough to run around the earth and into space at MHS Speeds, and tank the Megatons of being blasted into the moon, Putting Kneesocks comfortably on this tiers stat level. 

As a Demon, Kneesocks is immune to all earthly diseases and poison and therefore both Riptor and Sadira lose their most haxy abilities out the gate. Kneesocks can also transform and traverse as a shadow, something that should easily let her avoid attacks and escape from webbing traps, as well as would allow her to take on the shadow composed Omens. Speaking of which, her Scythes as well as physical strikes are able to hit on the Astral Plane, which easily means she could kill anyone in this tier including Spinal with total ease. Kneesocks is remarkably intelligent and sophisticated, especially when compared to the fighters here, and would be able to out strategize all her attackers. She also could avoid being overwhelmed as Demons are able to create large numbers of ghosts or zombies to do their bidding, even boosting their stats dramatically to be on their level.

But then we go into Kneesocks best ability, that being the passive Bad Luck Aura she generates, which was strong enough to nullify the Angel’s own Good Luck Aura that allowed them to win at the game Roulette as many times as they played. With this in effect basically no one would be able to touch her, as they are far more likely to trip over themselves via unnatural misfortune.

You may be wondering why Kneesocks over Scanty? Well that's simple, Scanty plays significantly more into this tiers strengths than its weaknesses by using distance weapons. Not only is this far more susceptible to the characters Attack Reflection and being dodged by their mobility powers, but it also makes her Bad Luck Aura less effective due to getting less close. As we know this Aura is proximity based as they had to get right up close to the Angels to stop them from winning the casino games despite the fact they were in the same building as the angels the entire time before that. Kneesocks on the other hand serves as an up close melee fighter able to just assassinate anyone in close range.

All this said she has no direct means of countering Invisibility, more than likely her Bad Luck Aura would stop that too but it is possible for Kneesocks to lose, for a more safe bet you could choose...

Lok:

Lok from Magicka would be an excellent pick for this tier, being the massive tank to stop their rushdown strategy and a swiss army knife of magic to strike back. Lok scales to numerous hypersonic to MHS speed feats from the Wizards, and is powerful enough to casually tank a Nuclear Explosion point blank which should put her near on par with stats, but that's basically an afterthought here.

Lok as the Chosen one of the Magicka verse, has full control over all 8 elements and the ability to forge new ones to use giving her a massive arsenal of powers. With the Shield Element, Lok can make a wide variety of different energy barriers strong enough to block the planet destroying blasts of Cthulhu, and can cast this into walls, domes, and a skintight aura. 

This puts a massive wrench in the KI fighters plans as they cannot even get near Lok to attack, which is Necessary to use their mind and soul hax, two things she possibly has resistance to anyway.

That’s not even mentioning Lok can also put elements into her shields to attack foes who hit them, or heal herself with their attacks.

Lok also has the Life Element, which would allow her to regenerate from any damage she receives as well as cure sickness and poison. Life magic can also be used to kill the Undead like Spinal.

Lok has numerous elemental attacks that can be area cast to prevent them from using their attack reflection.

Lok has powers like flight and time dilation to deal with their mobility. She’s a technological super genius who could possibly hack into the Fulgore hivemind, and she’s charismatic enough to quickly forge a rebellion force anyway from the verses own people.

And Lok of course has plenty of haxy ways to take them down, from attacking with raw entropy, to sucking them into a singularity, to even sealing them in her magic nullifying orb dimension.

But if her slightly lower stats are still too glaring for you, how about...

Marie Korbel:

Marie Korbel from Skullgirls. Good ol’ Bloody Marie would be the ideal choice to take the fighters of this tier down, having Low City level DC from tossing a giant skyscraper at hypersonic speeds, Hypersonic speed from scaling past Valentines bullet dodging, and practically all the same benefits the previous two choices have all at once. Marie is completely immune to all the powers this tier can throw at her. The Skull Heart protects against Mind Hax, Soul Hax and Possession, and since she’s undead, poison and disease aren’t going to work. Even if they did, Marie has incredible regeneration able to come back as long as The Skull Heart remains, and tends to surround herself with numerous giant skull shields to block attacks, so needless to say no one could take her down easy.

Marie as the Skullgirl can fly and use telekinesis to increase her mobility and keep foes at bay. She can also control Shadows and the Dead and use it to attack which Greatly suggests she can take command of Omens and Spinal. Marie’s can control all the dead in an entire City Wide area and bolster their stats, making a Veritable Zombie Army that only grows and grows with time, this would easily keep back all her attackers and overwhelm them. And her Shadow attacks can attack from any direction, hitting beings like Omens are a cakewalk and would be a constant threat to any opponent.

She’s got more powers than this but her haxy-est ability, is her power to Destroy Souls, even early into her Skullgirl state she was instantly able to take out 3 Medici Assassins at once by destroying their souls with a mere snap of her fingers, which would be a long distance one shot move on anyone here that attack reflection cannot defend against.

Marie is also remarkably intelligent, with a Lot of great strategy feats as well as super senses, some clairvoyance, and even Metafictional Awareness. There is simply no chance they would stop her.

Planet Tier:

Here we get into the real powerhouses, this is the tier of Gargos, the legendary Demon god, and after he was slain the first time, the shadow energy he stole from the Astral Beings erupted from his body and into the KI Fighters that brought him down, bolstering their stats to be comparable to his own. Characters in this tier are Planet Level and Sub Relativistic, due to Scaling to Gargos’s feats of making portals larger than earth or draining the life force of everything on the planet while in a very weakened state, as well as flying down to earth at Mach 19000.

There are numerous characters in this tier with non corporeal abilities, like Orchid, Thunder, Cinder and Glacius who have Logia, or Hisako who can turn intangible, so some means of hitting someone with those powers is needed. Another dangerous Defense is Regeneration, like Kan-Ra who was able to regenerate from being incinerated to ash, and especially Gargos, who can come back from merely his soul. Similarly, ARIA is a mental plain being that merely possesses robot bodies.

With all that defense this tier is a lot more well rounded than the previous one but they still do have a lot of deadly offensive abilities too. Lots of characters can manipulate elements, fire, ice, rock, wind, blood, energy, sand, darkness, electricity, water and even freaking meteors will be flying at you. They also have abilities like Telekinesis, flight, teleportation, super senses, mind reading and precognition, invisibility, summoning monsters, attack reflection and necromancy.

To get into more Haxy Abilities, Orchid and Aganos have transmutation, Sabrewulf can turn foes into werewolves with a bite or scratch, Maya can shrink foes, Kan Ra has powerful mind control and Eyedol can resist that too, Hisako has possession and bodily control, and furthermore Orchid’s Boobs are somehow able to give any male who views them a heart attack, so it would really help to be a Female Counter

The most haxy character is Gargos, who can astral project his soul, create illusions, eat souls, create massive dimensional portals, steal powers, create fighting duplicates of his opponents, create matter, and Corrupt entire dimensions.

This tier essentially has most of what the previous tier has, lots of mobility and offensive powers on the Physical, Astral and Mental plane, only this tier covers its weaknesses better by also having some pretty damn good defenses and some Remarkably Intelligent characters on top of that, so what can one do to counter it? 

Well as I said your counters should be female to avoid Orchid’s Flash Finisher, your counter also is going to need some way of killing foes despite their being multiple types of Non Corporeals AND Low Godly Regen, so they will need hax that bypasses that, and lastly they need some manner of defending against Transmutation, Mind Control, Soul stealing, Possession, Corruption and Spatial Hax at the very least. Past that really a good strategy would be to try to be Like Gargos, but Better, honestly if Gargos wasn't in this verse, he'd be a good counter as he was basically designed to counter this verse as the OP Villain he is. Gargos’ Energy Draining was something he did while making a new body and it DEVASTATED all the characters, to the point where once he woke up, despite the stat boost the other KI Characters got since last time, he was still easily able to take on 4 foes at once. Also stuff like using their own powers against them has been very effective. One such example:

Dyspear:

Dyspear, the terrifying nightmare villainess from Pretty Cure. Dyspear is more than able to keep up with the entire Massively Hypersonic Go! Princess Pretty Cure Team, as well as physically moved the Earth, so should fit nicely into the stat range, with her being slightly slower but also slightly more powerful. This Speed Disadvantage Hardly matters though as Dyspear has the ability to stop time, which is not only devastating as none of the KI characters possess time manipulation, but all their more haxy abilities require getting close to her to really pull off, and she can just stop them from moving. Dyspear has a lot of similarities to Gargos, sporting the same Energy Draining, Mind Control, and even greater Spatial and Dimensional Hax to the point she could really devastate the verse in the same ways he did and fight him blow for blow. But even Gargos would not be able to prevent her from winning as he is vulnerable to having his soul sealed away forever in one of her pocket dimensions, as he cannot use his own dimensional powers without a body. Dyspear has another really damming hax, that being Death Manipulation so ridiculous, she once passively killed all life on the planet by simply taking a step, and if anyone does somehow manage to survive that they are still totally screwed as Dyspear can simply resurrect all the KI Characters she DID kill and have them kick their butt for her. But with all that she is still vulnerable to some of the hax in the verse, for a character with stronger defenses you could go with,

Anthrax:

Anthrax from Bastard!!, who yes by the way is a girl, would be totally broken in this series. While her stats aren’t nearly as high as the characters here she does have reactions high enough to not be blitzed. As if that would matter due to Anthrax being composed of Eternal Atoms, which essentially means she has to be completely destroyed on the Astral, Spiritual AND Physical scale or she will immediately regenerate from anything thrown at her. Within the verse, only Gargos has the abilities needed to actually put her down, and even he’d have a while before he’d figure out what to do. Anthrax can teleport and fly, and has all the needed hax to take anyone out such as mind control and soul absorption, and she only grows and grows in power as she does so. Anthrax can warp space around her to stop all the distance attacks the verse is known for to force them into close range, and from there Anthrax can absorb others to make them into extensions of herself. Also a verse THIS lush with advanced technology is really bad for the fact Anthrax has advanced technopathy enough to turn everything on them. That said due to her lesser stats, it may take awhile for her to defeat them all, for a faster route, theres always.

Sackgirl:

Sackgirl From Little Big Planet would be very OP here for basically all the reasons of the former two combined. Sackgirl can battle Navigation who is capable of destroying planets as well as move quickly into the Earth's atmosphere, which should put her on par in stats. Sack Girl can regenerate whenever she dies through ANY means to the nearest checkpoint like Frisk, meaning nothing, not even this verses Hax can kill her no matter how hard they try. This alone would make her OP but Sackgirl can also freeze time to prevent attacks from hitting her and take foes out while they are helpless. She can create things from her own imagination, as well as transmute foes into prize bubbles for herself and reality warp the world around her. She's about as OP as you can get in that sense with how its basically impossible for her to lose, and fairly easy for her to win.