People would lose their effing minds if these buffs happened. It's already pulling teeth trying to tell people SZ isn't broken. This has me laughing pretty hard (not in a bad way), great thread imo. I'll explain why I feel this way below.
- Meterless freeze off b33/ 12/ f33. We would be throwing multiple X-rays/ breakers per round if we didn't have to use meter for low (subsequently, any hit for that matter, as one confirm leads to corner, leads to 40%+ meterless) conversions. I think we make out like bandits having a meterless mid screen freeze on anyone, from just b33.
- Clone safe off any string. But people rarely punish clone cancels as is, and when they start they can be baited, or even frame trapped. Punishing clone is the core of GM match ups, opponents need this. In a way, so do we. We don't want a question (clone) without an answer (armor). Besides, we can make clone safe for a bar off any string besides maybe 123.
- Bigger clone hit box. Less of a stretch as it seems like a visual flaw when opponents poke straight through clone. Still more of a spacing issue on our part though, as we have a soft 50/50 from behind clone (b2 combo, d4 massive hit adv).
- Clone not whiffing close to opponents. NRS just buffed this validity check somewhat and clone is working as designed, or at least it's more reliable than ever (with the exception of b12 xx statue on hit). Any more leeway on this and we'd be insta-gibbing opponents with the best and faster space control MK has ever seen.
- Pressure string +/ safe on block. F12 is +2 currently. F4 xx statue is also positive, ~10f. Pretty decent for a bar. We're not Liu Kang, we shouldn't jail very hard. Not in the conventional ways anyway.
We don't need "buffs," but perhaps "fixes," as it's always been. I would suggest only the following.
- The clone coming out on b12 hit should be consistent. This would give 35% combos mud screen, which is pretty huge for GM.
- Corner shatter auto-block should be disabled. Makes clone clone shatter combos (45% from b33/12/ f33) finally possible. There's no reason shatter should have 0 hit stun in normal combos.
That's all I've got. Hopefully it makes sense.