Combos: Killer Instinct Guide for SFIV Players

Combos

Enders

Glacius performs a combo without an ender, leaving regenerating white health, and the same combo again with a Puddle Punch damage ender, which cashes out the white health. (sound)

You’ve likely noticed by now the large amount of white health that builds up during a combo. Each hit of a combo will do a percentage of its damage as recoverable white health, which starts to regenerate very quickly once the combo is over. This means that learning to cash out that white life is very important.

You remove all white life your opponent has when you perform an ender. An ender is a special move you execute with HP or HK, and it can be input at any time during the combo sequence. To help indicate an ender, you’ll notice the camera changing angles slightly to punctuate the action. Every special move that can hit the opponent has an ender version, although the special moves that cannot be used as linkers will always become enders, regardless of what button you pressed. For example, Jago’s Tiger Fury uppercut is never a linker, so performing it mid-combo with any punch button always triggers an ender. If, however, you want the ender version of Wind Kick, normally a linker, you must execute the move with HK.

Jago's enders. Watch the meter build on Endokuken and the extra damage on Tiger Fury. Laser Sword and Wind Kick allow for situational follow-ups. (sound)

There are a couple very important things to know about enders. The first is that an ender usually ends a combo, but not always. Really, an ender is just a move in a combo that removes your opponent’s white life. It will very often cause a knockdown or leave the offensive character in long recovery, thus making sure your combo is over, but some enders are actually designed to leave your opponent in a state where they are susceptible to a small number of follow-up hits. In this sense, the term “ender” is a bit of a misnomer, since combos do not necessarily end when they are used. It’s worth noting that enders are not instinct cancelable, normal cancelable, or special cancelable, so follow-up hits tend to fall outside the traditional sequence (such as air juggles).

Also, each special move ender has a different property which distinguishes them from each other. Why would you use one ender over another if they all remove white life? Well, it’s because you might want to apply different beneficial properties given the state of the match. Here’s a short list of how enders can be classified; keep in mind that not all characters will have an ender of each type. Hover over the ender name to see a complete list of enders of that type.

Battery ender Jago: Endokuken
Sabrewulf: (none)
Glacius: Shatter
Thunder: Ankle Slicer
Sadira: (none)
Orchid: (none)
Spinal: Searing Skull (grants skulls instead of shadow meter)
Fulgore: (none)
TJ Combo: Tremor
Maya: (none)
Kan-Ra: Swarm (summons a free Shadow Swarm)
Riptor: (none)
: Builds extra shadow meter, often as much as a full stock, or grants some other resource. Useful when you find yourself starved for meter, or when you are comboing your opponent between rounds and do not need other properties.
Damage ender Jago: Tiger Fury, Shadow Tiger Fury
Sabrewulf: Eclipse, Shadow Eclipse
Glacius: Puddle Punch, Shadow Puddle Punch, Shadow Shatter
Thunder: Call of the Earth, Shadow Call of the Earth, Shadow Sammamish
Sadira: Shadow Recluse
Orchid: Air Buster, Shadow Upper Firecat
Spinal: Skeleport, Shadow Skeleport
Fulgore: Plasma Slice, Shadow Plasma Slice
TJ Combo: Auto-Barrage (use all 6 buttons in a row)
Maya: Spirit Strike
Kan-Ra: Clutch, Shadow Clutch
Riptor: Talon Rake
: Does extra damage. Excellent for closing out a round or making a comeback, and a great default ender when you're unsure which to use.
Carry/Wall Splat ender Jago: Wind Kick
Sabrewulf: Ragged Edge
Glacius: Cold Shoulder
Thunder: Triplax
Sadira: (none)
Orchid: Blockade Runner
Spinal: Boneshaker
Fulgore: Blade Dash
TJ Combo: Powerline, Shadow Powerline
Maya: (none)
Kan-Ra: Whirl
Riptor: Shoulder Charge
: Pushes the opponent away from you. When near the corner, slams the opponent into the stage boundary; the offense recovers first and can land an extra hit, including a throwThis is the only time in the game you are allowed to perform a standard throw on someone in hit stun. The throw can be teched using LP+LK, almost like a combo breaker for throws..
Launcher ender Jago: Laser Sword
Sabrewulf: Running Uppercut
Glacius: (none)
Thunder: Sammamish
Sadira: Blade Demon
Orchid: Ichi Ni San
Spinal: Soul Sword
Fulgore: Eye Laser, Energy Bolt
TJ Combo: Vortex, Shadow Vortex
Maya: (none)
Kan-Ra: Spike
Riptor: (none) : Launches the opponent high into the air. Some characters, like Spinal and Orchid, get to follow up with unbreakable damage, making it a way to extend combos risk-free.
Exchange Launcher ender Jago: (none)
Sabrewulf: (none)
Glacius: (none)
Thunder: (none)
Sadira: Recluse, Shadow Recluse
Orchid: Flick Flack
Spinal: (none)
Fulgore: (none)
TJ Combo: Flying Knee (switches sides without launch)
Maya: Leap Kick
Kan-Ra: (none)
Riptor: (none) : Launches the opponent over your head, switching sides. Similar in application to a launcher ender. Useful for some characters to get extra damage, like Maya and Sadira.
Ground Bounce ender Jago: (none)
Sabrewulf: (none)
Glacius: Hail
Thunder: Shadow Call of the Earth (also damage ender)
Sadira: (none)
Orchid: (none)
Spinal: (none)
Fulgore: (none)
TJ Combo: (none)
Maya: (none)
Kan-Ra: (none)
Riptor: Clever Girl, Shadow Clever Girl
: Bounces the opponent off the ground and into the air. Another uncommon variation on the launcher ender. Some characters, like Glacius, get to set up mixups.
Hard Knockdown ender Jago: (none)
Sabrewulf: (none)
Glacius: (none)
Thunder: (none)
Sadira: (none)
Orchid: (none)
Spinal: (none)
Fulgore: (none)
TJ Combo: (none)
Maya: Tumble Kick
Kan-Ra: (none)
Riptor: Tail Flip
: Causes a hard knockdown with no other extra property. Allows characters to set up a guaranteed mixup over the knocked-down opponent. Very uncommon.

Early in the match, Spinal chooses to use Searing Skull battery ender to get three of his unique skull resource. Later, he spends some skulls to curse an opponent after a Soul Sword launcher ender. (sound)

Sabrewulf shows a dangerous mixup after Ragged Edge wall splat ender. He can knock you down for a safe jump, he can throw for good damage and a mixup, or he can bait your throw tech with a neutral jump. (sound)

KV Meter

In Killer Instinct, there is no juggle potentialJuggle potential is a system in the SFIV combo engine which prevents an airborne opponent from being hit too many times by air attacks in a combo., or gravity scalingGravity scaling is a system in some air-heavy fighting games where an opponent will fall continually faster as a combo progresses. Eventually, he will fall too fast and will drop out of the combo., or any other common system to prevent combos from going on forever, and because you can cancel auto-doubles into linkers without limit, there needs to be protection against infinite combos. KI implements something called the KV meter to accomplish this.

The KV meterKV stands for Knockdown Value. is a red bar underneath your combo counter. When you start a combo, the meter starts empty and slowly fills as you perform hits. When the bar reaches 100 or higher, the next hit with a non-ender normal or special will cause a blow out; your opponent will enter an invincible spinning state and incur a soft knockdown. Because you did not perform an ender, your opponent’s white life will remain and begin regenerating. Throws and shadow moves cannot cause a blow out, however, which can lead to some extra damage after the opponent has reached 100 KV in some situations. Enders that allow for grounded follow-up hits, like wall splat enders, will add a lot of KV to your combo, which will likely cause your next hit to blow out.

In general, light attacks build a lot of KV, while heavy attacks build little. The implication of this is that combos involving lots of light moves, which are difficult for the defender to combo break, will reach the KV limit faster and therefore must be shorter. Alternatively, lots of heavy attacks will let you extend the combo longer, but they are much easier to defend against. Shadow moves do not build any KV, which means you can use them at any time without worry. Lastly, activating instinct or counter-breaking will reset the KV meter to 0, no matter the stage of your combo. This can allow for some very high damage combos if the defense becomes predictable.

Two chained crouching LKs start the KV extremely high, earning only ender level 1 before the combo quickly blows out. Doing heavy moves keeps the KV low and builds ender level faster. (sound)

Fulgore does a combo that maxes the KV meter, instinct cancels to reset it to 0, then continues the combo. Shadow linkers do not add KV. (sound)

It’s difficult at first to keep an eye on your KV while comboing, which means it’s common to switch to a light attack unexpectedly and blow out the KV meter. It pays to go into training mode and get a sense of roughly how the KV meter builds, and use an ender before it reaches 100. Practice switching the strengths of your auto-doubles and linkers mid combo and learn to evaluate each move's impact on the KV meter.

Ender Level

The four green bars under the KV meter are your ender level. Ender level is directly proportional to the amount of white life your opponent has. This tends to mean that a long combo full of heavy attacks will build the ender level to level four rather quickly, and a combo full of light attacks will likely not reach level three before the KV meter blows out. Shadow attacks will inflict a lot of white life without adding to the KV meter, which makes them a good choice for rapidly increasing the ender level.

The ender level powers up your ender; whatever property that is applied by the ender of your choosing will be amplified. If you finish a combo with the ender level at 1 with the battery ender, you will likely only build about 25% of one stock of shadow meter, but if you finish with level 4, you could build more than a full stock. If you choose the damage ender, you will do extra damage proportional to your ender level. If you use a launcher ender, you will launch your opponent higher, allowing for more follow-ups than with a lower ender level. Your character will also perform a different animation depending on the ender level; typically a 1-hit version for level 1, up to a stylish 4-hit version for level 4.

Fulgore performs a mid-combo reset using his back+HP overhead; it does extra damage, yet keeps the ender level high. He then performs a short combo and cashes out obscene damage with a level 5 shadow damage ender. (sound)
(show combo)

Forward+HP command normal (2 hits)
Light Eye Laser opener (1 hit)
Heavy Blade Dash linker (3 hits)
Shadow Blade Dash linker (5 hits)
MP auto-double (2 hits)
Medium Eye Laser linker (2 hits)
--- RESET ---
Back+HP command normal (1 hit)
Light Eye Laser opener (1 hit)
MK auto-double (2 hits)
Shadow Plasma Slice ender (5 hits)

Because white life does not regenerate instantly once a combo is dropped, the ender level will remain at its previous level if you blow out the KV meter or choose to do a mid-combo resetA reset is when the offense intentionally stops a combo early for the purpose of starting a new combo on an unsuspecting defender. Resets in KI are particularly effective, because your opponent is very likely studying your combo intently for a chance to combo break, rather than preparing for a surprise mixup.. Because the first hits of combos do extra damage, it can be beneficial to build up the ender level and sneak in a reset, which will reset your KV to 0 (a new combo has started), earn you extra damage due to the first hit bonus, but not affect your ability to strongly cash out the white life with a high ender level.

The last important thing to note is that shadow enders give you a +1 level bonus to your ender level. This means that you can build a combo to level 3, but end the combo with a shadow ender and earn the bonuses of a level 4 ender. It also means that you can achieve a level 5 bonus, normally impossible, by building the level ender to 4 and performing a shadow ender. If your shadow ender is also a damage ender, this is a frightening amount of damage.

Ultra Combos

Kan-Ra combos his opponent into danger state, and then performs his ultra combo with + 3 Kicks. (sound)

The famous Killer Instinct ultra combo is nothing more than a specific ender that you can perform only when your opponent is in danger state. It is executed by a character-specific motion with three punches or three kicks. When he is at less than 15% on his second life bar, at any time you could perform a normal ender (that is, an opener must have been executed at some point), you can instead perform an ultra combo which instantly ends the match. Ultra combos are unbreakable, even under normal breaking rules (such as directly following an opener; see the Combo Breakers section), because the character is immediately KOed and unresponsive to inputs. You should regularly use this to your advantage by canceling an opener directly into an ultra to end the match without giving your opponent a chance to combo break.

Ultra combos will trigger a long, cinematic sequence of automated attacks, which will rapidly fill your shadow meter to maximum and finish with a giant crescendo set to music. In a nice aesthetic touch, each stage has a different set of instruments used to add flavor to these automated hits, and each fighter performs his combo with a different cadence, creating a variety of unique songs for each character. Since ultra combos have real strategic uses in fights, but are often quite long to finish, you can press MP+MK at any time during the ultra to perform an ultra ender, which ends the ultra early with one strong cinematic blow and lets you get to the next fight quickly.

Glacius performs an ultra combo, then cancels into instinct. He's allowed to perform more normal combo hits before another ultra combo, which he ends quickly with an ultra ender. (sound)

Ultra combos can also be instinct canceled any time your character is grounded, which can be used to style on a KOed opponent. Perform a long combo into ultra, wait until the ultra is almost over, then instinct cancel. Perform another KV-maxing combo, and then make them watch the ultra combo again. Some characters can even do three ultras in one combo using character-specific strategies. Killer Instinct Season 2 also brings with it stage ultras, which can be triggered only on certain stages at certain positions. Your character will perform a short sequence of blows, and then knock the opponent into a hazard on the stage. They fulfill the same role as normal ultra combos with a different style, offering a throwback to previous versions of Killer Instinct.

Summary

There has been a lot of words in the Combos section until now, but the basic Killer Instinct combo is pretty straightforward. At its core, you start with an opener; perhaps you do it raw, like a jump-in, or maybe you special cancel into one, and then start alternating between normals and special moves repeatedly until your KV runs out. You might throw a shadow move in there somewhere, and then you'll finish the combo with a HP or HK special move. If you don't learn anything about combos besides these simple tenets, you can enjoy and understand a large percentage of Killer Instinct matches.

There's one final, slightly more advanced technique that needs to be discussed, however.