The King of Fighters XV/Benimaru Nikaido/Strategy

Pokes

• 2D is one of the best sweeps in the game. It has great range, it's 6f startup, and it's whiff cancelable. Whiff canceling into 236B or 236A can hit someone for hopping at you. Between the two knee is faster and rajinken is more active. 2D can often be used to punish landing recovery from afar.

• 2B has great range for a light. It's also whiff cancelable into your anti hop specials. It's self chainable for easy confirms and combos into 236B at just about any distance.

• far D goes a bit further than sweep. It can go over lows once the attack becomes active. You can buffer 236236 during startup and fire the kick super if it hits. This can hit hops on their way up but if you think they're going to hop you should probably pick a different option.

• CD has less range than far D but hits higher and there is no hurtbox on his foot.

• far B is a low commitment check on the opponent's forward movement from pretty far away. This will tap people running or hopping at you but miss vs crouching. Be wary of characters with strong 2C pokes like Ralf or Heidern. You generally can't convert from this; it's just to get some breathing room.

• 236A is big and active and makes a good stop sign. It forces players to slow down so they can whiff punish it. The visual seems to last a little bit longer than the hitbox which can make doing so tricky. The ex version recovers much faster and if someone sticks their hand into it they get crumpled. 2369C is also pretty safe to fall back and fill space and build meter with.

Anti-Air/Air to Air

• 623D is generally the reactive antiair of choice. It raises Benimaru's collision box immediately so the opponent generally can't jump over it like DPs that move forward more. In exchange it has limited horizontal range. This can make it difficult to deal with big horizontal air buttons like Yashiro jD. Yashiro could make contact with his jD from far enough away that if he doesn't press anything the DP will miss.

• Benimaru's air throw is instant like ground throws so you can jump into the enemy and throw them before their attack comes out. The vertical range especially is fairly generous. It comes attached to his jC which is also pretty fast and big and active.

• jD can be useful air to air if you need a little more horzontal reach. Like other horizontal air attacks you can use it to wall off space or to punish a fireball if your jump didn't put you close enough for other options.

Frametraps

• Lights canceled into 236A - buffer super behind it in case it hits. Some smaller characters like Kula can 2B under this if you don't cancel immediately.
• 2A 236B - 236B can't be low profiled. 236B's followup has a very generous cancel window you can use to confirm.
• Heavies canceled into 6B - 6B is special cancelable so you can confirm with 236A or 236B.
• CD canceled into 214C - This also combos if the CD hits in the corner. CD 214A is a true string so you can use that to avoid getting punished with meterless roll between the CD and 214C. Or you could buffer kick super backwards to punish the roll.
• 214C 2B - corner only

Mixups

• Benimaru has a command grab. The normal version gives a hard knockdown and time to safejump or crossup. The ex version gives a combo.

• jB and jC can both be canceled into j2D to overhead the opponent again.

• jB crosses up. This can be performed with both the hop and jump versions. Benimaru can hop over many characters while they're standing. Cancelling crossup jB into j2D will pull Benimaru back to the original side.

• jD can cross up. Only the jump version can crossup. This is trickier to hit. It doesn't work on some of the smaller characters (Mai, Athena, Nakoruru, Whip, King, Mary, Yuri). It doesn't crossup most characters when they are crouching.

Punishes

• 236B+D is a 3f attack. This is very rare. The fastest normals are 4f and this has better range than many of those normals. This can punish many things that are generally safe like Yashiro 426A and Isla 214B. Like the normal version, the followup has a wide cancel window so you can confirm it.

• 236236K travels a great distance in 9f giving him a consistent shatter strike punish across the cast.

Safejumps

• 6246P backdash 2A jump forward - make sure you buffer the backdash from the throw recovery and the 2A from the backdash recovery
• forward throw run hyper hop - manually timed