What are Strikers?

The Striker system is KOF2000's star mechanic, providing assist attacks to your team in a manner not too dissimilar from assist mechanics in versus-style fighting games like Marvel vs Capcom or Dragon Ball FighterZ.

How do they work?

Team building

When building your team, you select four characters, rather than the KOF standard three. After assigning your team order, the final remaining team member will be designated as your team's Striker, allowing you to choose between their Standard form, which is just the character themselves, and their Alternative form, which is usually a cameo of another KOF character, a character from a different SNK property, or sometimes even alternative working designs of characters in the game.

Calling your Striker

To call your Striker, press BC. Your Striker will enter the fight, perform their attack, pose for a moment, and then leave. You must have a Striker Bomb available in order to call your Striker. You can call your Striker at any time as long as you are not in hitstun, blockstun, or performing a Desperation Move. Because of the open-endedness of when you can call your Striker, they are extremely versatile. Some common ways to use Strikers include extending combos, covering unsafe moves, controlling space, and even punishing whiffs in some cases. A neutral Striker call will cause your current character to pose while the Striker performs their move. This animation is invincible, so it can see some use in defensive situations. Striker calls made during moves will simply let the move play out without interruption. There is no cooldown time on Striker calls, but you cannot call your Striker while they are on screen.

You can also call your Striker when you throw the opponent, or break their throw. Doing so will expend one stock of the Power meter, as well as a Striker Bomb. This special Striker call will have them simply knock the opponent up into the air, rather than performing their unique attack. This sets up a free juggle state, generally allowing a super to connect, which makes throws quite dangerous with one stocks available.

Note that during normal Striker calls, your Striker can be hit by attacks on their way into the fight. This will cancel out the Striker attack, and they will simply leave, although you will still have lost a Striker Bomb. There are no penalties to having your Striker hit by an attack otherwise.

Striker Bombs

Striker calls are limited by a resource known as Striker Bombs. Both players start the match with three Bombs, and gain a Bomb as well as an extra slot for each character lost, with the maximum number of Striker Bombs able to be held capped at five. A Striker Bomb is expended every time you call your Striker.

On top of gaining a Striker Bomb whenever you lose a character, you can also trade one Power meter stock for a Striker Bomb by taunting during a match. However, unlike other KOF games, taunts are not cancelable in any way — you must commit to the entire animation when you perform a taunt, so it's up to you to find the best situations to use taunts to regain Striker Bombs.

Maniac Strikers

There are eight secret Maniac Strikers in KOF2000. Maniac Strikers are secret Strikers that must be unlocked by setting the appropriate character as your Striker, highlighting their Alternative striker, and inputting the code:

up, left (x3), right (x3), down

The Maniac Striker should then appear in place of the Alternative Striker.

Maniac Strikers are unlocked by selecting these characters: Kyo Kusanagi (Saisyu Kusanagi), Choi Bounge (Cool Choi), Chang Koehan (Smart Chang), Kasumi Todoh (Unknown), Iori Yagami (Another Iori), Ryo Sakazaki (G-Mantle), Ramon (Neo & Geo), Kula Diamond (Rugal Bernstein)

All characters:
Receive 1f~22f of strike invul if done in neutral
Chin:1~17f
Yuri:1~17f
Terry:1~18f
Kasumi:1~18f
King:1~18f
Jhun:1~18f
Takuma:1~18f
Maxima:1~18f
Robert:1~20f
Kula:1~21f
Leona:1~22f,22~45f Slight Low Profile
Ralf:1~23f
Iori:1~23f
Mai:1~23f
Ramon:1~23f
Shingo:1~25f
Clark:1~25f
Chang:1~25f
Andy:1~26f
Benimaru:1~26f

Striker Calls

Striker Andy

File:Andy00 striker

Even as an assist Andy's worse than Terry

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
-	Mid	-	-	70	22	61	153	-	-	1-16f Andy is offscreen,1-26f invul,27-50f low profile hurtbox,51-77 no hurtbox on feet,92-Endf invul
Andy jumps in to the player's position, and after a short delay, unleashes a dashing elbow strike that travels 3/4 screen distance, which launches the opponent for a juggle. A fairly middle of the road Striker that can see some use in both combos and space control. There are far worse Strikers, but there are far better ones, too.

Another Striker Billy

File:Billy00 striker

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
11	Mid	-	-	32	2(11)3(8)10	99	165	-	-	1-5f Billy is offscreen,1-8f invul,9-20 no hurtbox on feet,21-26 invul,27-132 wack hurtboxes,133-Endf invul
Billy dashes in to 1/4-screen distance before throwing out a short jumping strike with his staff, before following up with an upward strike that launches for a juggle. The final upward strike can hit knocked down and airborne opponents. A fairly standard Striker that covers the bases of screen control and combo potential. Nothing special in either regard, but if you really want Billy as your Striker, you won't suffer for it.

Striker Athena

File:Athena00 striker

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
0(5)	Mid	0	-	52	90(5)	158(194)	300(251)	-	-	1-24 invul,44-End invul(1-24f invul,44-52 invul,118-End invul)
Data in () depict the move on whiff. Athena tracks to the player's position, briefly emanating an aura around her. This aura will hit the opponent, causing a hard knockdown, and can hit knocked down and airborne opponents. If the player stands inside of the aura, they will heal a 5 pixels of health Really not anything special, as most life regen Strikers are, but it's not awful — you can have some fun with this.

Another Striker Princess Athena

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
6	Mid	1	-	62	28	124	214	-	-	1-23 invul,24-40 lower body invul,87-End
Athena jumps out to the player's position, then swings her sword, throwing out a short range flame projectile that resembles Kyo's Orochinagi. This projectile launches the opponent for a juggle on hit, and can hit both knocked down and airborne opponents. Very similar to Kyo's Striker in its overall utility. You can make some pretty cool combos with this.

Striker Bao

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
-	Mid	-	-	13(33)	5(15)Projectile	47	80	-	-	1-17,22-28,60-End

Damage	Guard	Guard Damage	Cancel Properties	Startup	Active	Recovery	Total	Hit Advantage	Block Advantage	Invulnerability
-	Mid	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-