3.1 Patch Notes

3.1 will begin to rollout Wednesday morning Pacific AM time for XBOX One and Windows 10.

Brand New Features!

Added New Character – Mira (Check out her full movelist here.)
- Default Costume
  - Accessories (3 Sets)
  - Color Variations (9 Colors)
- Retro Costume
  - Accessories (3 Sets)
  - Color Variations (6 Colors)
- Combo Assist Support
Added Shadow Lab Support for Mira, Kim Wu, & Tusk
Added Toggle for Cinematic Ender Cameras under Help & Options –> Display.
Added an Exclusive Retro Color 7 for all characters for players who purchase the SUPREME EDITION or Season 3 Ultra Edition bundles

General Bug Fixes:

Fixed an isolated issue where game would occasionally crash during Ranked Matchmaking.
Fixed soft lock that would sometimes occur when transitioning between screens using LB and RB.
Fixed a crash that would sometimes occur when Tusk was interrupted out of a deflect attack.
Fixed a soft lock that would occur if one of Arbiter’s grenades would detonate at the same time as a character was performing a command throw ender.
Fixed a crash that would occur when Shadow Jago would perform a Level 4 DP ender in the corner of a stage.
Fixed an issue where the announcer would not scream “Ultraaaaaaaaaaaa!” after a second ultra was performed.

A word from the Combat Team on 3.1 gameplay changes:

Hey guys, it’s your combat design team. We hope you are enjoying Season 3 so far. Just like last season, we’ve been watching, playing, and studying the game in the hopes of making balance adjustments that improve the combat ecosystem over time.

One of the key pieces of feedback we received from our Season 3 Rebalance presentation at Killer Instinct World Cup is that people want us to give more context as to why we make changes. Buffs to your favorite character feel great. Nerfs, not so much. But perhaps understanding what the combat team is thinking or trying to accomplish can soften the blow.

We all want Killer Instinct to be the best game it can possibly be, and we can’t get there without your help. So keep watching, playing, and studying, and keep discussing your findings on the forums. Fight on!

Additional context will be highlighted in blue.

System Changes:

A Shadow Move that would be breakable as a linker, but hits 2 or less times, no longer counts as a ‘breakable move’ in your combo. This removes the “half-whiff-shadow-linker unbreakables” from the game. (This means that, in order to cash out damage from these combos, you will have to add at least one more breakable window to the combo somewhere, or ensure the Shadow Linker hits 3 or more times. It is still possible to use these “half whiff” shadow linkers in combos, and they are still great options for messing up your opponent’s timing or sneaking in some damage.)
When your opponent techs your throw attempt or your throw is teched, it no longer counts as a reaction for cases where being hit (going into a reaction) destroys your projectiles or ends your active modes or curses. (This effects things like Spinal’s Curses and Skulls, Maya’s Dagger Assault, Kan-Ra’s Shadow Sandtrap, Cinder’s Pyrobombs, etc. Anything that would have ended when the character was hit. Now these characters can attempt or defend throws without risking the loss of their projectiles, modes, or curses.)
Added a 5-frame buffer window to the Counter Breaker input, so that you have a 5 frame window to input a 1^st frame Counter Break attempt. This removes the need to manually time a 1^st frame Counter Breaker vs someone inputting a 1^st frame Breaker attempt. (In general, you will still have to input your counter break before your opponent inputs his break attempt to succeed. But for manuals in particular, it was unreasonably difficult to input your counter break before an opponent who is also trying to break immediately. You may have noticed this in cases such as Tusk’s skewer or Rash’s LP juggles after a launcher. With this buffer in place, you will have a much easier time beating your opponent to the break and counter breaking successfully.)
Adjusted Flipout so that all characters fall with the same timing/gravity, instead of falling with their own personal jump gravity values. (We wanted players to be able to develop flipout setups that are not quite as character specific, though you’ll still have to deal with varying heights/widths on your opponents, as well as screen positioning factors.)
Fixed a bug that forced you to go through 1 frame of jump landing at the end of a Flipout, preventing reversals. (This lead to actual, inescapable flipout setups, and this change removes them.)
Fixed a bug where you could perform a second wall splat move without blowing out a combo following a move causing ground bounce or recapture.

Jago:

Fixed an issue that could cause some Lv1 Enders to whiff or be blocked when performed on the last possible frame of the cancel window on a light manual.

Glacius:

Fixed a bug causing Glacius’ Command Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
Fixed a bug that allowed opponents to get hit by Shatter during their pre-jump frames. (This was actually fixed in the 3.03 hotfix. We are just putting it on this list for the record.)

Sadira:

Decreased the knockback on Sadira’s Blade Demon (Launcher) Enders to increase followup combo options. (We recognize that players enjoyed the range Sadira was left at for juggles off of the old Recluse ender, so this new spacing allows f+HK and tiger-knee Med Widows Bite followups after Blade Demon Ender to be much more practical.)
Fixed a bug causing all of Sadira’s Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty. This bug was also causing higher than intended KV output for Sadira, so this fix has resulted in some longer juggle ability.
Fixed a bug causing the 2^nd hit of Heavy Widows Bite to not be breakable in some situations as intended.

Spinal:

Changed the duration it took for the hitbox to reappear on an Instinct Skull that had just bounced off of the wall from 25 frames to 20 frames.
Fixed a bug causing an Instinct Skull that hit the opponent and the wall on the same frame to consider its interaction with the wall as a priority.
Shadow Searing Skull is now +14 on hit at close range (down from +26). (All Heavy manuals are still easily possible here.)
Shadow Searing Skull damage reduced by 58% (These two changes were made because Shadow Searing Skull is being using as an unbreakable linker with a massive manual window now. These changes make it a low damage unbreakable projectile Shadow Move with a fair manual window after, making its primary purpose to apply an Instinct Curse.)

Fulgore:

Fixed a bug causing the 2^nd hit of his Medium Eye Beam to be breakable when used as an opener.

TJ Combo:

Increased the special cancel window on TJ Combo’s Standing Light Punch, fixing a bug that could make it difficult to special cancel from this move.
Fixed a bug causing all hitboxes to be missing for a few frames when landing from a Linker Flying Knee.

Maya:

Raised minimum height from which you can perform Mantis on the way up.
Mantis damage reduced by ~25% (Mantis combos were back in a big way in 3.0. Mantis being the only meterless juggle cash out in the game, in addition to Maya’s new juggle abilities, allowed her to deal a lot more damage than intended on few-break-chance combos a lot more easily than we’d like outside of instinct. As such, we are toning Mantis damage down and making it much harder to combo outside of Instinct by changing its height restriction. Being a meterless juggle cashout is still very strong and the damage is still very respectable. We anticipate that this technique will still be used often by Maya players during Instinct.)
Crouching Light Kick is now -3 on block (was -5). (We have no idea why this was ever -5 on block. Now it is less unsafe.)
Fixed a bug causing her Counter Breaker to teleport to the opponent’s location.

Kan Ra:

Made adjustments to the Sand Scorpion attacks.
- Removed the first hit damage bonus of x2, as this was causing his Clutch command throws to sometimes deal double damage while a Shadow Sand Trap was active.
- Increased damage on ground Scorpion Strike from 14 to 18 points (~22%)
- Increased damage on anti-air Scorpion Strike from 5 to 18 points (~360%)
Fixed a bug that caused the spit startup part of the Swarm projectile to damage other players if it came in contact with projectiles they own. (This was actually fixed in the 3.03 hotfix. We are just putting it on this list for the record.)
Fixed a bug causing his Light and Heavy Swarm attacks (up close) to have each other’s on block frame data. Light is now -3, and Heavy is now -1 as intended.
Fixed a bug that could cause the Scorpion Tail strike in his Ultra to blowout.

Riptor:

Added 1 frame of hitstop per hit (up from 0) to the hits of Flame Arc to ensure it follows ALL breaker system rules properly. Timing on followups has changed slightly as a result, but frame advantage is unchanged.
Corrected an issue causing Riptor to get stuck in her Lv2, Lv3, and Lv4 Talon Rake enders longer than intended, making them punishable on hit. She is no longer punishable on hit, and is left about +1 on her opponent.

Omen:

Made Demonic Despair’s hits count as “Launcher” hits. This fixed an issue where Arbiter’s Plasma Grenade could go off during this move, putting Arbiter back on the ground and leaving Omen punishable.
Fixed a bug that allowed Omen to cause his linkers to teleport to the opponent’s location if they were already in hitstun from something else.
Fixed a bug that allowed Omen to use crouching MK while his legs were burned out without fanning the flames.

Aganos:

Fixed a bug causing all of Aganos’ Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
Hitbox Adjustments to Standing Far HP.
- Added slightly more attack range to better match the animation.
- Added an additional vulnerable box behind Aganos so that opponents could properly punish this attack from behind.
Fixed a bug preventing Heavy Natural Disaster from bouncing off another Aganos in the mirror match on block.
Fixed an issue where Light, Heavy, and Shadow Payload Assault moves could fail to count as openers and lead to unbreakable combos.
Increased the size of the attack box on Back+LP to cover over his head slightly better. (This change was made to help with some of the new aerial offence available in the game.)

Hisako:

Possible fix for Light and Medium Influence Linkers sometimes not passing through opponents properly after Standing Medium Punch manuals.
Fixed a bug that could get Super Flash stuck ON when she was hit out of specific frames of her Shadow Counter.
Fixed an issue preventing Shadow Air On Ryo Zan from becoming breakable/counterbreakable when it should.

Cinder:

Fixed a bug causing the Shadow Linker version of Trailblazer to not be projectile invulnerable as intended. (All other characters who have a projectile invincible Shadow Move in neutral also had that invincibility on the linker version. This fix will help Cinder better avoid opponent projectiles, such as Arbiter or Orchid’s grenades, during his own combos.)

ARIA:

Fixed a bug causing Aria to get the fully charged version of HK no matter how long she held the button. (This created a situation where lots of fully charged bombs could be used to add unbreakable damage to any of ARIA’s juggles. Standing HK will now have to be held to get the extra bombs, as intended.)
Added additional pushback to standing HK to remove a big-character blockstring infinite.
Fixed a bug where Activating Instinct caused any attached Cinder Pyrobombs to be destroyed

Shadow Jago:

If you cross behind your opponent with your dash and press P, you will now trigger the vertical version of Dark Fury instead of the angled version. (This change was made to reduce frustration in fighting against this tactic. It decreases its effective range, but if an opponent is not blocking crossup, they will still get hit by Dark Fury in much the same way as before, and all the same juggles will be possible, so we still expect this technique to be very strong. The main goals here are to allow an opponent to better punish Shadow Jago for a successful block or dodge, and to adjust the risk/reward on this technique.)
Made Shadow Dark Drift a low to match the properties of the special move version.

Kim Wu:

Added some vacuum to Kim’s Shadow Counter so that it is less likely to whiff its first hit, and much less likely to whiff any hits after the 1^st if the 1^st hit connects. (Her Shadow Counter was whiffing in a lot more situations than expected so hopefully these improvements help.)
Fixed a bug for Dragon Counter sending back unintended Dragon Cannons.
Fixed a bug that made Shadow Dragon Kick do ender-scaled damage on the 2nd hit even outside of a combo. This lead to massive damage opener Dragon Kicks when the opponent had a lot of Potential Damage on their bar.
Fixed a bug that made Shadow Firecracker teleport to opponent after long range openers.

Tusk:

The following normal and command attacks now count as Openers, so that followup manuals, specials, and shadows are breakable.
- Backstab
- Standing Far MP
- Standing Far HP
- Crouching MP
- Crouching HP
  - (We made this change because we felt the unbreakable damage output after these moves into Shadow Skull Splitter was a bit high, but we didn’t want to take raw damage away from these moves. This gives players the opportunity to break without removing the heavy damage.)
- Reduced the damage of the Normal attack after a successful deflect by 20%. (Though the raw damage matched the normal version of these attacks in 3.0, the Deflect Success versions leave a LOT of potential damage behind because they are technically hit #2 of the combo. In the next update, another adjustment will ensure that deflect moves deal ONLY raw damage, leaving no potential damage behind. Until then, we’ve lowered the damage slightly to alleviate this concern a bit.)
- Fixed a bug causing the Deflect Success version of Standing HP to have 3 less frames of advantage compared to the normal version. (You should now be able to get the same combo confirms off of standing heavy punch weather or not it deflected something.)
- Adjusted Tusk’s vulnerable boxes on wakeup to make sure Riptor’s Flame Carpet would not whiff him.
- Tusk can no longer use Skewer against opponents with no health remaining. This also prevents him from using it against TJ during his Last Breath.
- Fixed a bug with his Immortal Spirit Overhead and Immortal Spirit Enders that caused them to fan the flames during Punch Burnout despite being kick button moves.

Arbiter:

Fixed a bug that allowed Arbiter to cancel his Shadow Linkers into Linkers.
Fixed a bug causing Arbiter’s Normals to not get the +3 manual hitstop penalty.
Fixed a bug causing his standing block to be throwable.
Fixed a bug causing jumping HP to be tagged as a special instead of a normal, raising its priority and allowing Spinal to Power Devour it.
Fixed a bug causing his crouching HP to cause a Hard Knockdown.
Fixed an issue where Plasma Grenades could fail to count as openers and lead to unbreakable combos.
Fixed a bug that gave Arbiter additional air actions during Instinct mode.
Fixed a bug that could cause a game freeze if Arbiter was hit out of his Lv1 Prophet’s Bane ender.

Rash:

Fixed a bug where Rash’s standing medium kick could cross under cornered opponents.
Adjusted Rash’s vulnerable boxes on wakeup to make sure Riptor’s Flame Carpet would not whiff.
Reduced the blockstun from Wrecking Ball by 6 frames. (This change was made so that more characters have anti-air punishment options after blocking this move, especially taller characters. This move was already fairly unsafe against most of the cast, but all characters should have additional options now for challenging followups to Wrecking Ball on block.)
Moved the frame on which you can cancel Run into attacks from frame 8 to frame 9.
Moved the frame on which you can cancel Run with a Jump from frame 4 to frame 9. This prevents using Pre-Jump frames to cancel out of Run into Normals earlier than intended.
Fixed a bug causing Rash to start on a later frame of his Run when canceled into from Big Bad Boot, leaving him more advantaged than intended. (With these 3 changes, he now has the same frame advantage on a run cancel as he does if he didn’t run cancel the Big Bad Boot attack. Because of the fast paced nature of the game and the speed of Rash’s overall pressure, we still expect run cancel boot to be quite useful in Rash’s offense.)

Nil: Sabrewulf, Thunder, Orchid

Discuss the Patch Notes for 3.1 here.