Ok so as promised here’s my initial impressions from playing him for one week.
I’ll start off by saying that this GL feels slightly worse than the INJ1 GL. Overall we have a character that has more control of the screen, but less damage and mix-up potential. Let’s talk about his tools. I’ll try to focus on the new character that we have but may make some comparisons to the old one.
First off let’s talk about his Lantern’s Might which has changed the most: Range has been reduced dramatically, it’s ability to punish certain moves like Aquaman’s from the deep and other negative moves at a specific range is gone. Raw lift on a read is gone as you may miss and get punished. Not only this but the air properties have slightly changed as well. I’ve had a lot of anti-air lifts miss just to get punished, it works only at a very specific range and after a close mb over charged lantern for some reason. It’s also lost its invincibility on wake-up and usually misses jump ins. Characters like batman pretty much get a free jump on knockdown and GL has to hold it. Overall I’m starting to use this move less and less for footsies and mainly use it for hit confirming. I’m very salty about the change lol.
Battery Blast: This is the move that replaces OAs rocket, it has interesting properties with traits and makes GL a really good zoner when trait is active being able to control different speeds.. The MB version is a really fast projectile that hits mid, great for punishing anti zoning attempts. I don’t mind the move I gotten used to it. Is it better than OAs rocket? I don’t think so. OAs rocket MB was +18 on block, could be used for pressure, and could get you 40%+ combos, it brought them closer to you for combo potential.
Air Battery Blast: This is an interesting move for the instant air fanatics, otherwise you’d wish you had air rockets. The thing about air rockets is that it put pressure on a grounded opponent, forcing chip damage.
Bowled over: this is a move that sometimes I forget it exists, that’s not to say it’s a bad move. I can’t say much for it but it seems like it will be decent after a battery blast in keeping the control and force people to jump. However it has a slow start up and your animation will be interrupted if you get hit by a faster projectile. I’m not sure about its setup properties. It is very negative on block so don’t use it up in a block string.
Overcharged Lantern: I really like this move, it gives GL more space control than Rocket Power did, it’s a mid and you can decide where to place it. The MB version has a big impact and can catch jumping opponents like Superman trying to do air lasers. The downside is it’s -8 on block so a lot of the cast can poke punish into a combo, which eventually people will catch on to.
Willpower Wall: This is your go to wake-up for catching jump attacks, I have seen the wake-up get stuffed though so use carefully, it’s -14 on block and the mb version is -1 and pushes them at GL’s optimal range. The MB will push your opponent far away so you can zone some.
Other noticeable things: His b13 has a huge hitbox to catch opponents jumping and can follow up with another b13, b13 still has a gap, b13 has a huge recovery on whiff and you’re bound to get punished if you miss the second hit, especially if it gets back dashed. B12 seems much slower than before. B2 is a mid, b23 is + 3 on block. F3 is so much slower than before and is very much reactable. His walkspeed is very good and his forward dash is much better than before. Do not backdash.
TLDR
Injustice 2 Green Lantern controls a lot of space and is quite good at zoning when he’s not getting zoned out by better zoners. Still very meter dependant and with slightly less damage I think he’s still a decent character. I don't think he's top 5 though. As for me I will keep exploring the character as he does decent in most match-ups. I’m mostly sad about the lift change more than anything.
