Mileena vs Kabal? I personally think it's a 6/4 for Kabal, but it's arguably a 5/5.
Mileena can't be constantly outzoned like many other characters can because of telekick. If Kabal does any of his projectiles from fullscreen and Mileena can predict it she gets a free telekick and a safe jump to start her pressure. Thing is, a really low iAF is hard to telekick on reaction. It must be predicted or he'll block it and punish. It's also hard to iAS over the ground saw on reaction. So while Kabal is technically still at advantage with zoning against her, he can't get too comfortable.
At mid range (Max D4 range), Mileena owns this matchup. D4 is, as always, a very good poke. But more importantly it's used to make Kabal do something since he can't out poke her from there. If Mileena has already gotten through his fullscreen stuff, Kabal's gonna have to take risks to get back the damage. Jumping at this range, even if he cancels into Air Gas blast, give Mileena free punishment with telekick or roll. Random rolls at this range can blow him up if he's not careful. And because of Kabal's damage output being so low, even if they're blocked, they can't be punished very hard. You will have to guess what Kabal does after his F4 reset, but nothing guaranteed.
This is another thing. Kabal will make up most of his damage back in chip with his dash cancel strings. Mileena has no armor moves unless she has x-ray, so gettingout of this nonsense is more difficult for her. She has to try and poke at him with D3 (1% damage and a few positive frames), try to jump out, or use an anti air move to stuff his crossovers.
The problem here is Kabal's ex dash. The armor on it prevents her from getting anything after landing d3. (same with everyone really). She punishes the blocked dash very hard with U4. But the dash is fullscreen so she can't chuck sais on knockdown or attempt to cross him up. If Kabal doesn't have meter, she can pressure him all day. But Kabal builds meter very fast with block string pressure.
Basically, Kabal is better in close and has a stupidly fast iAF that makes Mileenas sais almost look slow. But at the same time, even if he does hit you, if he guesses wrong on the pressure setups, Mileena can snatch that damage right back with her many versatile meterless combos. She wants to stay at mid range or just outside of it as much as possible. She can hang at fullscreen, but does not want to be in close unless during a safejump or equipped with xray.
