Alright I shall. When I say the 2nd bar I don't even mean mid combo. Bat Quan uses bat to be safe and cover his ass. Other Sorceror Quan has armor and chip rune making people afraid to block and making him safe respectively in certain situations.
Warlock lives and dies by the unsafeness of his mix up potential with only Ex rune to make it safe. As in ending a bnb with EX portal stav and going for the reset 50/50 you'd have to spend 2 bars to be safe.
Personally the EX stab is not something worth spending meter on in a bnb but without it he suffers from a similar level of unsafeness as Mos Erma minus the ability to EX rune which just resets the 50/50 situation. He's out damaged by Ermac.
The 2 bar situation i meant mainly is below.
He has strong anti zoning potential but unfortunately outside of scoop which costs a bar to combo off of will usually require abother bar to get substantial damage the other two Quans & a lot of the kast get free. Even if used defensively on reversal or WU.
While it's nice he does have a couple WU options in this variation both are easy baits and can normally be scouted. Especially in a game that's handing out damage like it's candy on Halloween IMO
Right, right....
It's true that Warlock doesn't have the meterless insurance policy for blocked mixups that Summoner and Sorcerer do, but Warlock retains the MB rune and still puts you in a very strong win/win position. A position that most characters in the upper half of the tier list wish they had in any variation.
And again, you don't have to go for the EX stab, ending with standing 4 still gives enough advantage to check with multiple mixup options. Thus retaining that meter for the MB rune option.
Nevermind just anti-zoning with Warlock, while perhaps not as much as Summoner, Warlock can still be an oppressive zoner in it's own right. It's the only variation that can true jail after MB rune anywhere on screen, and thanks to the removal of the auto-block on skulls, can use F3 to accumulate 14.5% in projectile trades. And helps you build that oh-so essential meter in the process.
Warlock having viable wakeups isn't just about using them, it's that you have them, period. That has an undeniable effect on the post-knockdown metagame and opens up other scenarios that you'd never have a chance to in the other variations. And now that the EX Scoop startup has been buffed, is also a legit punishment tool. For example, GM Sub all of a sudden can't just corner you and go ham with blocked mixups. In fact, I'm not sure if any other armored reversal in the game hurts him as hard for a blocked corner mixup.
With all that being said....
Is Warlock meter dependent? Essentially yes. But if you play your cards right in terms of meter management, you don't need it nearly as much as suggested to take games.
Is Warlock overall Quan Chi's worst variation? Very realistic possibility. But at the end of the day, this is still Quan Chi we're talking about, being Quan's worst variation is like "only" getting a bronze medal at the Olympics.
Am I disputing Warlock's placement? Ultimately no (although I have a hard time believing it's in a lower tier than some of the variations in the tiers above it). But it saddens me to see opinions of it determined by flawed notions.
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