If you want to lower the priority of Shang's jump ins, jabs, and his ability to avoid jabs from a duck or duck block, then you have to compensate by giving him some sort of body attack without needing to morph. The reason the programmers gave him those high priorities (like Baraka's jump ins) was to try to even out the fact that he doesn't have any body attacks like almost everyone else. I'm not sure what that body attack would be; maybe like a spinning back elbow, fist or kick that travels half screen and goes through projectiles. A teleport would also be nice; he's a fucking sorcerer, after all. You telling me a sorcerer can't fucking teleport? These two things would also help him out tremendously against turtling Liu Kang players, which make things way too difficult for a Shang player the way things are currently.
As a Shang player, I would willingly give up jump in priority and ability to duck block under jabs if things were equaled out this way. He still needs to have high priority jabs, though, but I wouldn't allow him to abuse the jabs straight out of a teleport like Raiden players do (including me) because it would be nearly impossible to get out of his lockdown. Maybe, instead of having him teleport close up like Kung Lao and Raiden, have him teleport to just within sweep distance (Shang's, not opposing player's).
Okay... the spinning back elbow/fist/kick would send the opponent to the back of the screen, so no juggle. There would be sufficient recovery time so as to prevent Shang from teleporting after the opponent afterward. However, in my game, you could incorporate this move at the END of a combo; example, aaHP, HP, HP, JP, spinning back attack, like 39%. Also, jump-in's can be canceled into spinning back attack the same way you can do a jump-in into torpedo with Raiden.
I also have a few grievances with Baraka (who doesn't!). I always loved Baraka, but he's so tough to use against good competition. First, he needs to have a quicker spark. The spark is, by far, the worst projectile in the game. It has the second or third smallest hit box, moves very slowly (I think only force ball and lightning blast are slower), and travels OVER several other characters when they are throwing projectiles. Someone else had the idea for a LOW blade spark, I like that, too, but it has to travel just a little faster. You can even keep the hitbox small if you're going to do that, fair is fair.
He needs less recovery on a blade swipe. His jabs need to function better as anti-air defense. Combine those two and you could give him decent combos such as aaHP, HP, swipe, spark. Not bad. Someone already had the idea to program Raiden's to bounceback only half screen after a blocked torpedo, which would help Baraka a lot, but I STILL think he needs some sort of body attack. I'm not sure what kind of body attack would fit Baraka. I would say a spinning back swipe, but then I'd just be stealing my own idea for Shang. Maybe like a flying scissor's kick similar to M. Bison. He would fly over low projectiles (fuck you, Liu turtles), but would still be hit with mid and high range projectiles. He would travel 3/4 the way across the screen, and a blocked scissor's kick would create bounceback similar to Kang's dragon kick or Lao's dive kick, allowing for aa punishment. Maybe that's stupid. It would be kind of funny to see him in that animation.
I also like the idea of using the double knee as a legitimate combo; I would want it to pop the opponent up for aa punishment. For example, HK, HK, aaHP, HP, swipe, spark is a good fucking combo that doesn't rape the whole game. A blocked double knee press, as it is, leaves the Baraka player open for uppercut punishment, so combos like this wouldn't necessarily make the move spammable.
I would also give Kung Lao higher priority sujp and sujk; in a matchup with Cage, Shang, or Baraka, it becomes very difficult to bait the opponent into sujk-dive kick combos. Not that Lao needs any more combos, but it would also be fun to give him better aa jabs so he can set up things like aaHP, HP, JP, dive kick and things like that. I'm sure somebody has already done that, I might have even done that before without remembering it. I know I've done aaHP, HP, hat throw. His aa jabs make it difficult to catch most characters, though, just those with really bad jumpins like the male ninjas and Liu.
I would also fix Liu's low fireball. Liu players still have the option of spamming it, but with Baraka's low spark and Tsung's spinning back whatever, the opponent has a chance to answer. Besides that, I would significantly reduce the aa qualities of the low fireball. As it is, it hits most, if not all, characters in a jump kick, plus, from most angles, it knocks Lao out of dive kick (thought the dive kick often connects at the same time, causing damage to both players). This is bullshit. At most, I would improve the aa qualites of the high fireball, thereby forcing the Liu player to use both wisely. You could still take advantage of using the low fireball to bait a jump in and punish that with an uppercut, aa jabs-bicycle kick combo, or high fireball, but you CAN'T use the low fireball to bait a jump into into another fucking low fireball. That's just bullshit.
Let me know what you guys think.
