Well that's partially incorrect, if you go and look at the Hat Trap Cancel Frame Data thread you'll see that he infact has at least 4 safe Hat Trap setups on block which are 3~hat trap, B2~hat trap, 112124~hat trap and B32~hat trap. B22~hat trap and 4~hat trap are -6 and so can only be punished by Cassie and Reptile. He'll have at least a few safe ones on hit.
I've but a very short video under 3 minutes, with everything that is wrong with Hat Trick, this is my last complaning video and hopefully helps ppl to understand why i don't believe simply giving him "more pressure" or "Hat only going away on the knockdown" will be fine.
For once, The hat going away as it is is fine, because that way Lao gets the ex spin threat back, the issue is not ppl poking out of traps because it goes away on one hit, is how exposed he gets, he loses everything aside from poking and teleport, which is a big call for a bad design
On The other hand, the way he stays without hat only works under one condition, the opponent needs to be in between KL and the Hat Trap itself, so Above Hat Trap and Away Hat Trap are extremely useless, Above Trap far more but away trap falls short due to one single thing, lao can't extend his strings or convert into combos once the hat is out and not behind the opponent.
We could discuss this all day, Hat Trick is already linear as it is, if he can't use Away or Above Trap to setup better traps than the obvious ones from low and mid trap midscreen which makes his game very linear, might as well just pick tempest or Buzzsaw and do the same thing with ex Hat Spin or ex Hat Toss at some extend.
The point is, in order for Lao to use all his traps on a viable way instead of just one, he needs to be able to land a hit~Call his hat~continue to land a hit and spin for an extention, i firmly believe this will make him far more technical and far more fun to play in general, it will also step away from the currently model of every if not almost all single character charging up with 50-50 mixups pressure like Sonya does.
The video is self explanatory really, there isin't nothing too complicated or too unfair IMO and nothing game breaking at all, so i will end this rant here, anything else related to the buffs below is all well presented in the video.
Just to list what i suggest to change if NRS still hasn't given up on trying to make all possible variations in the game viable, these are my suggestions:
Fixes
1. Hat Hitbox increased to stop whiffing on characters crouch blocking and neutral crouching to avoid it, like Cassie Sonya, Reptile, or Any one sized with a Sub-Zero's Hurtbox ETC.
Buffs
1. Same juggle Height for when HCB hits either stand or crouching opponents, same Juggle Height of low HCB for when it hits crouching opponents as well
2. Juggle Height lightly increased to ease up conversions
3. Ability to extend combos out of 11212~HCB with 44 string being a 2 or 1 frame link, so he can extend his combos when hatless this would also make his away and above traps more threatening
4. New Above Hat Trap command that places the hat upwards but forward or away to actually give usability to this tool set which in some MUs i feel is much needed like Takeda, Kitana etc.
5. Slight advantage when using 112124~hat trap, +3 should be enough to grand him at least a d4 check
So before entering posting up, take a good look at this video, then discuss it.
