JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All-Star Battle R/Kars

Overview

Strategy

Combos

Matchups

Resources

Introduction

The central antagonist of Battle Tendency, the second part of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Kars is the leader of the Pillar Men, a group of ancient, super-human beings that seek to acquire the Red Stone of Aja so that Kars can be transformed into the most powerful being on the planet. As the leader of the Pillar Men, Kars is cunning and deceitful, always looking to gain an upper hand over his opponent at any cost.

In ASBR, Kars is a close-ranged rushdown character that can bully his way into his preferred range with his incredible aerial buttons, large and good-scaling grounded normals, and a variety of movement-based special moves that influence the different ways he can approach the opponent. His Modes add additional hits to his blade-related normals and special moves, increasing the pushback and hit confirm potential on them as well as giving him an easy cancel option to continue his mixups. He has relatively high damage, being able to convert into 30-40% off of even the smallest stray hits, and his vortex potential after a hard knockdown makes him one of the most threatening characters in the game to defend against.

For the cost of two bars and a setup, however, Kars can shed his base form to become the Ultimate Life Form, an install super that dramatically changes his playstyle into a hybrid zoner-setplay monster who can pressure with a multitude of safe buttons and projectiles, as well as one of the best zoning tools in the game in "The power of supreme genes!". The drastic variations in gameplay between base form and Ultimate means that Kars can tweak his play depending on the matchup and his opponent, and choose to play in a variety of archetypes to find the one that irritates the other player the most.

Kars isn't all strengths, though; his wakeup is very weak in both forms, especially in Ultimate when he loses access to his wakeup HHA, a large and fast-starting hitbox that can be used as an anti-air callout at some ranges. Kars is extremely momentum focused, and understanding exactly how to keep his mixups going is the key to winning games with him.

• Life Regeneration: Part of the damage Kars receives is converted into silver, residual health, which he passively recovers over time.
• Modes: Kars has two main installs, both of which change the properties on his blade-related normals and special moves.
• Ultimate Life Form: For two bars, Kars can transform into the Ultimate Life Form, his third install. As the Ultimate Life Form, Kars has a multitude of changes to his original moveset, as all of his original special moves have been replaced with new tools.

Playstyle

Kars is a Mode character who utilizes his long-reaching normals and high damage to pressure the opponent into making bad decisions.
Pros	Cons
Ease of execution: In both base form and Ultimate, Kars' combos are generally quite simple for the amount of damage they output, and his optimal loops are not much more difficult. Strong mixups: Kars is amazing at getting hits and converting those into hard knockdowns that he can thrive off of, pressuring with a series of high-lows and janky left-right camera mixups with the threat of taking a third of your health bar on any one blocking mistake. Flexibility in playstyle: Between his two main forms and the multitude of special moves he gets in both, Kars can play multiple kinds of archetypes of his own choice, and even switch between them freely; from a mixup-heavy rushdown beast to a keepaway zoner and everything in between.	Low health: Kars has 850 HP, one of the lowest values in the game, and due to the high damage of some of the strongest characters in ASBR, he can quite easily get two-touched or even TOD'd with the right resources and routes. Volatile wakeup game: If Kars loses the advantage, he can have quite the difficult time gaining it again, especially if his Stylish Guard attempts get repeatedly baited. He has no true invincible wakeup options in Ultimate Life Form, and combined with his low health, playing in ULF can very quickly spiral out of your control if up against another character with strong safejumps.

Modes

Kars has access to two installs in order to enhance his abilities, both of which are accessible from his base form.

• Light Mode (Mode 1) is activated by pressing the Style button, and costs no meter. This Mode adds an additional hit to each of Kars' blade-related moves and shortens the arc of his jump.
• Brilliant Bone Blades (Mode 2) is activated by pressing 22S, and costs one bar. This Mode adds a third hit to each of Kars' blade-related moves, as well as making his jump arc even shorter and making some of his blade moves start up and end much sooner.

The following moves are affected by both Modes:

• 5H
• 3H
• j.H
• Cruel and beautiful violence!
• Behold, frozen brilliance!
• Victory is everything! (Light and Medium only)

The tradeoff for using Mode is that while in either install, you are unable to build any meter until you either turn off Mode (by pressing Style again, only in Mode 1), use an HHA or GHA, or are forcefully knocked out of the install by taking a hard knockdown. This means that Mode is a very strong tool to use to close out games, throwing your opponent's reactions out of wack at the very end by implementing a much shorter jump for your mixups to open them up easier.

Stats

Style	Health	Low Health Mode	Hashtag(s)
Mode	850	Rumble	#ASBR_KAR #ASBR_KAS

Move List

File:JJASBR BlueVampire Icon.png

Normal Form

File:JJASBR RedVampire Icon.png

Ultimate Life Form

Normal Form

Normal Moves

5L

5L	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 15 Mid - - - - - Kars does a short jab with the tip of his elbow. Stubby, not your best starter or neutral tool. Pretty much always gonna wanna use 2L or 5M in neutral exchanges.

5M

5M	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 25 Mid - - - - - Kars stands on one foot and attacks with a leg strike from behind his back. Big range and quick startup. Amazing in neutral as it can stuff a lot of approaches and gives you medium scaling.

5H

5H	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 35 / 20x2 / 15x3 Mid - - - - - Kars quickly juts out forward with a bone blade extending from his arm. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Unreasonably fast, which means it can also be used as a solid poke at a close range. Combos into 3H if used as an anti-air, giving you a full combo.

2L

2L	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 14 Low - - - - - Kars attacks with a short poke of his fingers to the opponent's lower half. Kars' best low, has fast startup and short recovery meaning it can be chained 3-5 times in a blockstring before needing to cancel into another normal.

2M

2M	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 23 Low - - - - - Kars does a short roundhouse sweep with his leg. Stubby range, can occasionally poke out some moves that lose to crouchers.

2H

2H	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 34 Low - - - - - Kars does an approaching slide, kicking his legs into the air. Mainly combo filler for his 236H loops, as he has better lows and better neutral buttons that don't leave you so exposed.

3H

3H Sabers from my feet!

Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 25 / 15x2 / 12x3 Mid - - - - - A bone blade emerges from the underside of Kars' feet. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Launches, leads into his main air juggles and loops. The main tool you'll be using for extending combos. Gives relative safety if canceled into on block, though how safe you are depends on the character matchup, so end in something safer if you feel like they have a punish. Extremely safe in modes 1/2. Air crushes if done to an aerial opponent, giving you a free combo on anti-airs.

JL

j.L	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 18 Overhead - - - - - A fist strike from the air. Superceded by Kars' two other amazing air normals, though it can occasionally be useful for fakeout overheads to try and catch a Stylish Guard.

JM

j.M SCREW this move SCREW this move

Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 28 Overhead - - - - - Kars extends his leg to strike with an overhead attack. Extremely deceptive hitboxes on the front and back of the animation. Amazing for crossups. Has a very high amount of active frames, making it perfect for meaty setups. Dash jump j.M is one of the most oppressive approaching tools in the game, use it whenever possible.

JH

j.H

Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 40 / 25x2 / 20x3 Overhead - - - - - A bone-blade strike with the edge of Kars' arm. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Another great hitbox, better for crossing up than intercepting approaches. All of the extra hits in modes 1/2 are overheads, so feel free to abuse it for free double/triple overheads into low pressure.

Special Moves

236X

Cruel and beautiful violence! 236L/M/H File:JJASBR Kars 236X.png

Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 10, 50 / 12, 27x2 / 14, 20x3 Mid - - - - - Medium 12, 55 / 14, 30x2 / 16, 24x3 Mid - - - - - Heavy 14, 66 / 16, 35x2 / 18, 28x3 Mid - - - - - Kars does an approaching bone blade slash that crosses up depending on the version used. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Light and medium stay same-side, whereas heavy crosses you up to the other side of the opponent. Light and medium are occasionally true blockstrings out of a normal depending on spacing, but 236H is never true regardless of spacing, so remember to use it with an assist if you want to use it in a blockstring. Heavy is Kars' main juggle tool.

623X

Behold, frozen brilliance! 623L/M/H

Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 10x4, 4 / 11x5, 6 / 12x6, 8 Mid - - - - - Medium 10x5, 6 / 11x6, 8 / 12x7, 10 Mid - - - - - Heavy 10x6, 8 / 11x7, 10 / 12x9 Mid - - - - - Kars does a flurry of blade strikes. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Bad. Minus on block, can't combo into it or from it very easily, and has terrible damage. The only reason you'd ever use this move is accidentally.

214X

Shatter against the wall! 214L/M/H

Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 55 Mid - - - - - Light (Air) 90 Mid - - - - - Medium 65 Mid - - - - - Medium (Air) 100 Mid - - - - - Heavy 75 Mid - - - - - Heavy (Air) 110 Mid - - - - - Kars does a strong mule kick against the back wall. Light/medium are mostly not that important, as they do less damage and their only benefit is starting up faster. Heavy is Kars' main combo ender. Causes hard knockdown and can launch the opponent across the screen if done facing away from a wall, giving you the only true setup into GHA. Heavy also has high guard gauge damage, and doing a flash cancel or assist call after the initial blocked hit gives you more than enough plus frames to force more mixups or place pressure on your opponent's guard gauge. Feel free to burn leftover meter on a 214H mixup from time to time to keep yourself safe.

22X

Victory is everything! 22L/M/H File:JJASBR Kars 22X (Start).png Start Start Light Light Medium Medium Heavy Heavy

Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 60 / 32x2 / 24x3 Overhead - - - - - Kars does a small animation and then teleports to a specific location based on input. The light version is an overhead that appears directly above your opponent's current position. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Ground bounces on hit, letting you get a full combo from it. One of the main tentpoles of Kars' offense. Plus on block and an overhead that's incredibly easy to meaty. Medium 50 / 5, 80 / 5x2, 80 Low - - - - - Kars does a small animation and then teleports to a specific location based on input. The medium version is a same-side low that launches. Affected by Modes. Damage notated as: Normal / Mode 1 / Mode 2. Pretty minus and risky, plus you can't combo off of this one. Only teleport version that beats running straight ahead (though all three teleports can be OS'd by running forward and doing a dash jump as late as possible) Heavy - - - - - - - Kars does a small animation and then teleports to a specific location based on your input. The heavy version teleports you directly behind the opponent, with no initial hitbox. Very powerful anti-zoning tool, as it can invalidate a lot of keepaway play if done at the right time. Actionable almost immediately after the teleport animation ends, giving you a hit/throw mixup or even a guaranteed whiff punish.

System Mechanics

Throw

Normal Throw I'll slice you in two! 5/4 + Any Two Attack Buttons Forward Forward Back Back	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 110 Throw - - - - - Forward and Back Throws have unique animations. Notes 2

Assist

Assist Victory is everything! File:JJASBR Kars Assist.png	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 60 Overhead - - - - - Assault Assist Stocks: 2 Reversal Assist Stocks: 1 Based on 22L

5S

Light Mode 5S Animation Animation Mode On Mode On	Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Mode On - - - - Total XX - - Mode Off - - - - Total XX - - Turns Light Mode on/off.

22S

Brilliant Bone Blades 22S File:JJASBR Kars 22S.png Not to be confused with the HHA Not to be confused with the HHA	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. - - - - - - - Activates Brilliant Bone Blades. Requires 1 bar. Using an HHA during Brilliant Bone Blades will remove its meter cost.

Heart Heat Attack

Brilliant Bone Blades 236 + Any Two Attack Buttons Not to be confused with the Mode Not to be confused with the Mode	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 174 (6+12x5+18+20+70) Mid - - - - - Kars licks the one blade in his arm before unleashing a large, shining array of slashes done in a single movement of his arm. If they successfully hit, Kars then dives forward to slash past the opponent. Only Hit 8 triggers cinematic properties.

Great Heat Attack

Kars, the Ultimate Thing, is born! 236L+M+H File:JJASBR Character GHA (1).png File:JJASBR Character GHA (2).png File:JJASBR Character GHA (3).png

Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. - - - - - - - Kars dons the Stone Mask with the Red Stone of Aja inserted into it, going through a slow and entirely vulnerable animation of transforming (similar to Giorno Giovanna). When the transformation is complete, Kars does a small cinematic cutscene before the install is finished. Transformation. Grants Kars a new moveset. Disables Light Mode and Brilliant Bone Blades (both the Mode and HHA) for the rest of the match.

Ultimate Life Form

Normal Moves

ULF 5L

5L File:JJASBR Kars ULF 5L.png	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 17 Mid - - - - - Kars does a short jab with the tip of his elbow. Unchanged from base form

ULF 5M

5M File:JJASBR Kars ULF 5M.png	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 27 Mid - - - - - Kars stands on one foot and attacks with a leg strike from behind his back. Unchanged from base form

ULF 5H

5H File:JJASBR Kars ULF 5H.png	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 17, 27 Mid - - - - - A two-hit blade strike.

ULF 2L

2L	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 16 Low - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

ULF 2M

2M File:JJASBR Kars ULF 2M.png	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 25 Low - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

ULF 2H

2H	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 38 Mid - - - - - Launches Notes 2

ULF 3H

6H Brilliant Bone Blades Not to be confused with the Mode or the HHA Not to be confused with the Mode or the HHA	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 50 Unblockable - - - - - Launches Notes 2

ULF JL

j.L	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 20 Overhead - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

ULF JM

j.M	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 30 Overhead - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

ULF JH

j.H	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 44 Overhead - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

Special Moves

ULF 236X

Feast your eyes on my Hamon! 236L/M/H File:JJASBR Kars ULF 236X.png	Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 30, 35 Mid - - - - - Launches Notes 2 Medium 75 Mid - - - - - Causes crumple Notes 2 Heavy 75 Mid - - - - - Launches Notes 2

ULF 214X

The power of supreme genes! 214L/M/H Light Light Medium Medium File:JJASBR Kars ULF 214H.png Heavy Heavy	Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 11x6 Mid - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2 Medium 58 Overhead - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2 Heavy 15x5 Low - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

ULF 623X

This cannot be! 623L/M/H	Version Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. Light 15x3, 20 Mid - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2 Medium 20x4 - - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2 Heavy 25x3, 95 - - - - - - Notes 1 Notes 2

System Mechanics

ULF Throw

Throw You IDIOT! 5/4 + Any Two Attack Buttons Forward Forward File:JJASBR Kars ULF Throw (3).png Back Back	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. 110 Throw - - - - - Forward and Back Throws have unique animations. Notes 2

Predator Wings

Predator Wings Any jump after 1/2/3	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. - - - - - - - Super Jump Transitions into Flight for the cost of meter; drains meter while flying. Can perform Aerial Chain Beat while flying. Can cancel Flight by: Pressing 5S Running out of meter Performing 3 actions (any combination between aerial attacks and Aerial Dash)

Aerial Dash

Aerial Dash j.44 / j.66 Forward Forward Back Back	Damage Guard Startup Active Recovery Block Adv. Hit Adv. - - - - - - - Air Dashes Notes 2