Shao Kahn is harder in Mortal Kombat 9 than ever before. I fought and defeated him using Liu Kang using fireballs of course and staying away from him. But with Raiden he is even harder to defeat since it's like playing on Expert difficulty on Ladder Match mode.
I have tried all I can, fireballs teleports etc and I can only take away half his blood (even with the X-Ray) before he does his hard-to-dodge moves.
Can anyone share how they defeated him?
Play lame; Keep your distance, teleport when he throws his hammer (block or jump over his arrows) and then do the Electric Fly (back -> toward -> Front Kick, the attack that resembles Superman flying and pushing the enemy). When he decides it's a good idea to stop attacking to taunt you, land a combo (or a Electric Fly if you don't feel confident enough to combo him). If he approaches you, keep going back until it's not possible to do it anymore, then jump and use the Electric Fly on the air to get to the other side of the stage safely.
If you can avoid the majority of his attacks, he will go down eventually, but it is quite hard.
All you need to do to beat Shao Khan with Raiden is to teleport behind him when he throws his spears or his hammer. Once you're behind him, uppercut him repeatedly.
Timing your atacks can let you wittle His health down it is a hard match but it can be managed (I am an awful MK player so only way i know is to be cheap),
He's not that hard once you now what to do. When the fight starts jump away twice, then walk away. If he shoulder charges you or you are in the corner and he gets to close teleport, jump away twice and walk away. That's how you keep the distance. If he throws the spear - duck. If he throws hammer teleport and use this simple combo: 3,3,4 electric flight ( b,f, 3 ). This combo is easy to pull off, does decent damage and Raiden jumps away after, creating distance. If Shao starts laughing electric flight him but if you think you're late it's best to do nothing. Don't do anything else, projectile fight against him is useless, unless you have some serious reflexes. You can save your x-ray to finish him off. If you follow these rules you should either beat him or win when the time runs out.
For bosses there is no need for any "tactics" since their huge range and power will mostly squish you but there is a neat trick that helps against all bosses (Just never get into any corner)...
Just get near the boss and jump over him again and again until he does something that keeps a him bit longer busy and do a good combo or simple uppercut. Rinse and repeat. Works perfectly for the bosses on all difficulties.
The other answers have some pretty good tips, but there's one thing I noticed that helps endlessly. Shao Kahn, cheap as he is, is very predictable in one way: he will always do a wakeup attack - i.e. if you knock him down, he will perform a special (or taunt) just as he is getting up. The trick is to get behind him at this point to both avoid his attack and get a free hit of you own.
Raiden is quite well placed to take advantage of this as you can get behind him very quickly by teleporting. Once you've knocked him down once, teleport behind him and perform a simple attack to knock him down again (forward and FK works, if I recall). Rinse, lather, repeat.
Don't get too cocky and go for a combo - he will often gain armour (the white flash of invulnerability) and go to town on your face.
The timing needs some getting used to but it's not too hard. It's cheesy, yes, but he's so infuriating that I personally don't feel bad about exploiting his AI. The hardest part is often knocking him down in the first place, as well as maintaining the rhythm. I'd tried numerous things before I found this, and it's worked on both Story mode and Ladder matches, with a variety of characters.
I've got him down to only a quarter health left before using teleport jump and combos. Sadly, I'm yet to beat him. Shao Kahn's AI just uses 'spear spear hammer hammer' and then blocks any attack I send. I've used the electric fly and all that jazz but can't figure it out quite yet.
You are lucky rarely I get him past his name and i use the teleport idea and keep distance but i still get nailed by his hammers and spears and SHOULDER CHARGES, which some of the other answers forgot to mention, and his x-ray. Best way get past his xray is by a. jumping away or b. sweep (away plus B ps I play xbox so I don't know what the ps button is) . The shoulder charge he uses to breach the gap between you and him if useing keep away technique and also he sometimes "cheats" by useing the shoulder charge twice right after another and then it is hammer time. And if you use electric fly then he just throws a spear and you get nailed and then throws hammer, spear, hammer or hammer, hammer, shoulder charge, which got my health to where in just one hit Raiden dies and this is just the first round. Some how he manages to get full x-ray in the first about 15 seconds and when he enables that do as I said earlier. But Shao Kahn just simply counters with a hammer slam followed by his basic op combo. Also practice on something in training mode just don't throw and dont enable the ai until you learn how to use the abilities.
Just shoot projectiles and electri fly and if he gets to close just teleport and go backwards I've beat the game plenty of times now
