I'm pretty sure there is truth to both sides of this little dispute, and I'll put it in the context of something very dear to me for the sake of clarification.
Joker had a very strong corner game in terms of setups and spacing, making it very difficult for people to escape.
It didn't matter. His neutral game was so terrible that he could almost never reliably open someone up on a high level, let alone get them to the corner, despite having very good corner carry. He suffered because of this.
What I'm wondering, and I haven't spent much time with the character yet because of RL priorities, is how are we to navigate the neutral game to effectively utilize these setups.
Take this video, for instance. How reliable do you really think it is to catch someone in the overhead shower projectile? That startup is hella long and you have to guess just to have it maybe hit them if they are in the right spot.
From an initial look at the frame data, his f1 seems strong for punishes and his 2 is a solid mid option, but his low starter options are VERY short range, his overheads are all very slow, and his footsie game seems kinda average at best. As Dave has pointed out at excess, his zoning is all incredibly slow and not particularly safe considering how long the startups are, which is typically something that would offset.
Rather than start at the setups like always seems to be done, how do you guys think this character fairs at navigating the neutral? Most of the game is spent in this state. Setplay only gets you so far, and you have to go through the neutral to get there. Let's change the conversation and squash this "debate".
Still really cool tho.
