I don't know why Kotal (War God at least) is termed to be a footsie based character, he just b122s everything.. he would wakeup b122 everything basically!
YOu don't need to be footsie heavy to win with Kotal, that's why he is an easy pick for easy wins. the ultimate noob killer.
he's a mixup character in my opinion..
options off of b1 starters, assume opponent is blocking and has to guess the following:
b1, grab
b1, crutch slap (d1) into db2 or ex db1
b1, db2
b1, db1
b12, db2
b12, db1
b122, db2
b122, db1 (no gaps here - but good luck making the guesses from all these options)
then you have the TekkenMaster special with b122 ex sword toss (in the corner)
b13, db2
b13, db1
he has sooooooo many options off of this string..
And people have sooooo many options to deal with them. If you guess right on a War God mixup, chances are, you get a free punish. Kotal is ridiculously punishable on db1, db2 and EX db1 on block. You just have to take your character into the lab to see what you can punish db1 and db2 with on block as the block stun is kinda iffy.
If the Kotal player is staggering their b1, you can armor or poke if you have a relatively fast poke. Kotal is -2 after a blocked b1, so if he tries to do another one, anything that's 10 frames or faster will beat it.
Playing against Sun God? b1 ticks aren't the hardest thing to deal with. Hell, none of them are except for s1 ticks because people don't see it too much. But I was playing Jupiter last night as Sun God for a bit and the dude blew up the majority of my tick attempts because HE KNOWS THE MU. He was also blowing my War God up whenever he'd block db1/db2.
Kotal is a newb/scrub killer because said newbs/scrubs don't know the MU.
Oh, and Kotal doesn't have -any- options off of a b14 (you listed it as b13, but I know what you meant) as there is a fuckin' gap in everything he does afterwards on block. It doesn't matter what it is. The only exception may be b14~db1. I'm pretty sure there's a gap there, but I don't recall. So, don't 100% quote me on that.
A lot of complaints about Kotal stem from him getting "free footsies" because of b1 and probably d4. Kotal is certainly a pick up and play character, but he's not an "I Win" character against those who know the MU. Don't try and sell him as such. :| How he does against a casual player =/= how he does against a high level player.