Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3 Human Smoke Strategy Guide
Special Moves, General Gameplay Guide
Human Smoke - Rank: 2
Human Smoke is a top tier character, ranked #2 of 23 available characters in the game. He has one of the highest combo potentials for starting a combo on the ground. Essentially, 2 mistakes and you are done. The only thing that makes him better than Ermac in terms of tactics is his air throw, but the air throw alone brings his tier level up dramatically. Male Ninjas can play a nice defensive game and he is one the best to make use of that with because of the available damage he can deal in those situations, not unlike Reptile and Ermac. They all have huge damage opportunities on defense, but it is possible to rush down with them as well. There is a common misconception that Human Smoke is just a clone of Scorpion, who is gray and smoking, with no difference in moves. In reality, Human Smoke is much more powerful than Scorpion because he has pop up combos, and he also has a slightly faster walking speed, which makes certain juggle combos easier. His damage range is anywhere from 10 to 35% more at any given time in the same situation as Scorpion. Run jabs and safe teleports are your game. Make sure to only use his HK, LP combo when rushing down, or off a jump punch start. Many players will use his 4 hit combo (the one Scorpion should use) because of reflex. Remove that from you brain because it is worthless. Anti air HPs and roundhouses are a must, and can easily link into 50%+ combos, make sure you have the timing down, and know which characters can be anti air HPed easily. Mix up his run jabs with knees, for example, double run jab, run in, knee, run jab, knee, knee, and keep them guessing, but watch for an opening to set up his pop up combo. Don't forget about his airthrow, and try and get them low on cross up attempts. When run jabbing, sometimes an opponent will jump away, watch for a juggled LP and get them with a harpoon afterward. Also pay attention to collision detection. For some reason when male ninjas duck and block, a lot of distance gets between them and the attacker, causing their combos to miss, like Jax and Kabal. When Jax's first punch in his combo, or Kabal's uppercut misses, capitalize on that with a harpoon, or run in and combo.
Basic Moves
The Male Ninjas have excellent basic moves, good height and range on everything in relation to their sprite proportions, their roundhouse is extra wicked and can connect in almost any situation. The only thing that can be weird about them is their aaHPs. Sometimes they tend to miss in situations where you wouldn't expect them to and this is due to kara canceling with run to speed the last hit up, in this situation, often you can do aaHP, LP and it'll work, with slightly less damage, otherwise, always take an extra small step in before doing aaHPs.The Harpoon (or Spear, I tend to throw both words around randomly) is an essential move as it is a very quick containment and relatively safe to do from full screen depending on the who the opponent it. It's good on wake ups as it seems to have a hit box in front of him before it even comes out. You can try throwing out a harpoon afterward a combo for mix ups on jumpy players. It can be linked in juggle combos with a normal limit of 4 hits before it, and can be broken to 5. It can counter many simple standing attacks for free. You might want to also get the feel down for players who jump back and snag them on a landing. Anytime you connect a Harpoon with Human Smoke, it means at least 50% on every character. Learn the best combos for specific characters, but most of them are vulnerable to his bread and butter 56%. A situation where you might be able to consistently connect a spear would be when running jabbing, then doing a teleport punch without leaving the screen. At this point a lot of players try to jump in, hit a spear right as they are coming down, into a convenient combo of choice. You can also just throw out a spear as wake up at this point on characters who don't have teleports.
The Teleport Punch is a great move if used for escaping and overall positioning and maneuverability. If you use it too much players will see your patterns and counter by getting in the way of it and blocking. If you are experienced enough with the placement and timing you should be able to teleport almost anytime it is available (it has a small time limit between usages) and not get punished. Essentially think of the screen's width as 1 unit, and then if there is more than half of the entire screen behind you and the opponent combined, you are safe. Use if when you are getting up to escape run jabs, HKs or knee starting combos. It is best to try and get the placement down to land right next to them even if they are blocking, this sets up free throw potential and/or rush down. Watch out for counter sweeps, LKs, HKs or uppercuts if you rush in immediately. Utilize the teleport punch as a combo extender but try not to actually hit them with it as it activates damage protection. Its limit is 4 hits before it is locked, has a small window of time limit recharge and you can stretch it out to 2 uses per combo if done right. Do not use the teleport punch as a safe guard chip hit when someone is on danger because it only does about 2% chip damage and danger can mean the person has 4% life left. It is common to see people lose matches they should have won because of this. In order to connect his teleport punch on characters like Shang Tsung, Liu Kang, female ninjas, Robots Ninjas, and Sheeva in mid screen standard combo situations, after his HK, LP pop up, jump forward and wait until he starts coming down on the flip to JK, then instantly cancel to the teleport punch. This makes him line up better with them. You can also glitch cancel the teleport punch if you want to get fancy.
His Air Throw is very useful on jumpy opponents, remember to tap block in air a few times any time you leave the ground just incase they do as well. Use it on cross attempts, it's not quite as useful in sweep situations as Jax or Kano's, but still possible to do. It's good to link at the end of juggle combos.
Human Smoke has one sketchy infinite, in which you can perform his bread and butter combo over and over by intentionally breaking it at the D+LP. The window to achieve this comboable break is approximately 1 frame. It is almost worthless to try because you can throw away a match trying to do this. The combo breaks and allows you to perform his Teleport Punch and Harpoon over and over each rotation.
Human Smoke can relaunch every character in the game, like Ermac and Kano. This is done by performing a launcher combo, jumping along with the opponent as they are flying, and as you are about to land, connect a linked HP, which is unblockable if they are close enough to the ground but are still considered in air, and then the autocombo is free. It is useful against certain characters, as some are easier to relaunch than others. Difficult/pointless relaunch attempts are Stryker, Sindel, Female Ninjas, and Male Ninjas. Everyone else is pretty easily relaunched by Human Smoke.
Basic Juggles
(this is adding 1 hit and about 7% for air throws in damage protected combos and 14% for regular combos since the game does not count them as part of a combo)1. HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, spear, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, air throw, 10 hits 48%
2. HK, LP, JK, teleport punch, spear, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, air throw 10 hits 53%
3. jump punch starter, HK, LP, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, air throw 10 hits 55%
Advanced Juggles
(Harpoon makes corner combos easier to set up)1. jump punch start, HK, LP, deep JK, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 62%
2. (on male ninjas, Stryker, Sub, Jax, Kano etc) HK, LP, RH, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 57%
3. aaRH, teleport punch, aaHP, aaHP, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11hits 62%
4. aa(HP,HP), teleport punch miss, aa(HP,HP), spear, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, air throw 11 hits 68%
5. jump punch starter, HK, D+LP, D+HP, spear, Run close to corner if already near, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, JK, air throw, 11 hits 65%
6. aaHP, HP, JK, teleport punch, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11 hits 68%
7. aaHP, HP, teleport punch whiff, aaHP, JK, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, aaHP, JK, air throw 11 hits 78% (BP)
Corner Punishers
1. (very close to wall) aaHP, HP, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, RH, HK 9 hits 60%2. (very close to wall) aaHP, RH, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, RH, HK 9 hits 71%
3. (very close to wall) aaRH, harpoon, HK, LP, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, RH, HK 11 hits 72%
4. (half screen distance from wall) aaHP, HP, JK, aaHP, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, RH, JK 11hits 83%
5. (sweep distance from wall) aaHP, HP, JK, RH, harpoon, HK, D+LP, D+HP, JK, RH, HK 11hits 93%
You can add two HPs before the final JK, air throw to the Robot Ninjas, Jax, and Sub-zero, but it is very difficult to time, and two LPs on male ninjas, adding only 1% to the finished combo.