coolwhip
Master
You can't equate a bad character with a bad variation. It's OK for a character as good as Scorpion to have a flawed variation because the other two are good (Hellfire is flat out ridiculous).This game is turning us more and more into variation loyalists.
If this continues, there won't be much of a reason to play other variations aside from the strongest variations each characters offers, which kinda bills the real intention of the soft counter intended for this game with the variation changes.
Hellfire is low risk high reward, if you can make everything safe while you pressure, you have 50-50, mixups, damage, meter building, pace control, air game, Can hit confirm without much of commitment, why would you play ninjutsu and inferno?
Ninjutsu was supposed to be about the threat of the ranges, but that ain't scary at all considering the crap damage it does added with the damage protection they bulked inside that move to scale the rest of your combo, besides the risk is still on scorpion side since B2 is punishable on block, more so on whiff, by anyone that can input a damn reversal launcher or have an reaching normal will punish that for twices the damage you would get for trying to punish that mistake.
Why would i want to play trap raiden or displacer if Thunder God has all the good juice? Thunder God can break armor, and if you block he can build meter, Why would i want to trade that with a teleport that takes forever to recovery if you don't use meter?
We're all like: "Loses using Jax, Picks Ding Dong Cassie, Loses using Master of Souls Ermac, Picks Erron Black, loses using Scorpion, Picks Thunder God Raiden"
And then you look at kenshi and be like "Lol"
Look at Hatrick "lol"
Look at Shinnok "Lol"
Kitana "Lol"
- "WHY ARE YOU PLAYING THAT CRAP, STOP BEING A CHARACTER LOYALIST AND PICK THE BETTER VAR DAMN IT" - @coolwhip <3
Since we're talking about tier list, this is what i think based on the strongest vars
top 5 - Raiden, D'vorah, Quan Chi, Sonya, Kung Jin
6-10 - Cassie, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Kotal, Erron
Close but not quite 10: Jax, Lao, Ermac, Mileena, Johnny*, F/T, Kano*
Lol: Rest
And while I still think Lao is a touch overrated, buzz-saw and tempest are obviously viable enough variations to where even if Hat Trick isn't that good, it shouldn't be anywhere near the priority list of characters/variations to re-examine.
Would it be cool if every variation for every character was great? Sure. Was that ever realistic? Not really.
Kitana and Kenshi have problems as characters, across all variations. It's not the same as Ninjutsu or hat trick. That was my whole point in that Scorpion thread. I'm all for character loyalty, and that's the beauty of the variation system. If you want to play Scorpion and one variation isn't good, just pick the other.