As far as it goes this patch doesnt fix much for anyone, fundamental problems stay and there doenst seem to be a reason to keep it this way. Maybe devs are trying to empower characters strong sides instead of fixing their weak sides, just to make a different characters, but as long as parry and/or air grap is left unchanged there is no fix for sun and blood god.
KK "footsies" are greatly overrated, its not that great at all, if even. Footsies are first of all ability to control space and though connected, but not limited to range of your pokes. While d4 is great but is not intimidating enough by itself and you have no projectiles to ask for jumps or wiffs, not many options to put pressure on your opponent. If you need an example of great footsies that would be Mileena in my opinion, Cassie is also pretty good in that department, as she can threaten you with mixup at close range , projectiles from afar and b1 as a great get in of wiff punishment tool. Combining that options make her a great footsie character as she can always put you in a spot she wants you in and bait a mistake. Against Kotal your opponent can just "sit it out" and eventually gain positional advantage. Kotal actually plays footsies against himself all the time, as he HAS to keep himself in a certain range to be able to threaten opponent at all, while opponent can capitalize on that.
I very heavily disagree.
It's a law of fighting games that people want to move, everyone moves. People will move because they want to impose themselves on you and avoid having you start your shit up close.
KK has excelent normals, some of the best in the game, he can punish whiffed jump ins better than 90% of the cast, movement is clipped by f2 for very high damage, he has a good anti air in d2, best down pokes in the game and more.
I happen to play
@LionHeart in the mileena matchup and I can tell you that is not the case. Mileena is a worse footsies character than Kotal.
Even his worst variations were at least mid tier and there were few matchups in which you needed a variation change, these changes leave him close to top tier in my opinion. You have subzero's ice aura meterlessly and with less recovery? You can be even more + than he is doing it? You have 48% bnbs off of F2? A variation with good mindgames and an armoured overhead combo starter?
This character is very strong now. He almost has zangief's damage in command grabs with some of the best footsies in the game.
You don't need projectiles to make people whiff or move. I've played way too much adon to know that. Kotal is an up close character, of course he prefers a certain distance, midscreen and closer. One variation has armour out of its ass whose main purpose is to mindfuck your opponent with, the first thing I thought of when I saw EX OSS was that I solved my anti air problems and that I can bait people to duck and then slaughter them for it. On top of it it can be option selected to blow up through a myriad of things, certain characters CANNOT wakeup against you because of the option selects you have with that move.
Another variation has an effective potential 300/400% life if played with the correct totem and can recover life on top of it, having an obsidian totem means it takes twice as long to lose the health you gain from sun ray, 1% tick per half a second is 2% whenever you get hit with obsidian totem up. Blood offering is now 5% with obsidian and the synergy is absolutely amazing, you can actually use this move. In previous cases you wouldn't because it's often a waste, now not only does it cost less but you take less damage in general with the totem up so you effectively have more life, you can match your opponent hitpoint to hitpoint even when it comes to chip damage. Zoners now deal almost no damage, someone like Kenshi has to spend a bar to do 14% damage to you off of a reversal man.
Sun god's choke did a decent chunk of damage and now does the best command grab damage in the entire game and almost a 5th of the opponent's lifebar, people will press buttons and do dumb shit to avoid that. A flat damage bonus is extremely strong because if you hit you opponent with 3 L3 command grabs, that's a total of 15% extra damage you've done in total. And his armour now does damage that is considered discouraging, nobody wants to eat a 19% unblockable that leads into setups with the +10 hit advantage. Not to mention the ease of landing more command grabs considering the L1 and L2 ones now are safejumps. And his BNBS now do upwards of 48% without offering.
I don't understand how Kotal is bad. He never was bad, just painfuly mediocre. Now he's a very strong character.
