I'm with you on this. The timing is oddball to me.
So, initial impressions from a purely training mode standpoint. Good forward walk speed and decent strings with that lovely lovely advancing low and decent advancing high/mid that can be used on whiff, along with natural options for movement makes me think he's got a solid neutral. He doesn't feel like he's ATROCITUS YOU DONT GET TO NEUTRAL good but more than solid. Nice counter zoning stuff, some functional zoning tools of his own. At least so far , I don't think he seems particularly disadvantaged at any screen position with good options to control his own space and to get in to that space efficiently.
I was worried at first about damage but less so now. Some of the combos coming out if the community here are perfectly reasonable damage. It's not best in game or any kind of Earth shatteringly high damage, but it's not what I'd think of as low either. Just solid.
He seems to have some setup potential.. with trait into mb throw being + enough that it seems like you get a guaranteed f3 (B3 as well?) And 112 x mine enders, As well as vortex-y restand stuff midscreen, he feels like a character that's going to want to have couple bars on deck when he really engages, to enforce his restand stuff while still doing respectable damage. Backdashes catch his mine stuff outside the corner, but perhaps we'll find ways around that..*
I will say not having the MB gun throw move is extremely sad, and I will also say that having the ability to MB the lunge into s bomb launch (an ability you get at lv20) being attached to gear is additionally sad because these are two very cool abilities, but hey, it's how it is, and I honestly live under the belief that we could see abilities introduced into tournaments one day with some system reworks., So fingers crossed, maybe.
Overall , he's 100% my new main. I like his kit and I like his character (minus the edgelord stuff). I like that as a gameplan it's looking like I can focus on different things, more.keepaway heavy, or raw damage, or setup/reset based, or everything. He looks like he has depth and the Red Hood of today is not as strong and optimized as the Red Hood of tomorrow or next week.
I have high hopes. Now, trying to place a character in a tier list when they aren't 24hrs old is little more than folly, but based on initial impressions, I feel like he's on the stronger side. No way to put s letter or number to it, but he feels strong to me. Not oppressive or insanely strong, but stout.
* Just curious, has anyone tried like, 112 x mine, jump Forward to deal with backdash? You drop the mine and get in the air where you can try to tag them as they backdash, or hit the air gunshot possibly? I know the idea is a setup that doesn't require us to hard read the opponents wakeup, but covers all options more or less, but I didn't know if the timing would allow for anything like that. Shrug.
