Great stuff! Definitely will be applying some of these tips.
I had done quite a bit of lab work on the Smoke variation as Kitana. I'm not sure how much other characters are affected, but for Kitana, armoring at gaps in Smoke's strings or when he special cancels can yield different results depending on which armored move you use, and not all are favorable to Kitana.
For example: If Smoke cancels 1, 11, or 111 into Fade-Port and you use EX Rising Blade (her go-to armored reversal as it leads to 30%+), the Fade-Port will crush Kitana despite the fact only the Fade-Port hits and none of the jabs (This must be a bug). EX Assassin Strike, and EX Shadow Kick both go under it and whiff. ONLY EX Throat Slice counters Fade-Port in this string. However, in several other strings, EX Rising Blades will land at gaps or if it is canceled into Fade-Port.
Another example of weird things that happen when you try to armor through Smoke as Kitana: If Smoke cancels any string into Smoke Bomb, and you use EX Square Wave, it will trade with Smoke, leaving both characters at full screen. However, if Smoke uses EX Smoke Bomb, EX Square Wave beats it.
If you use Kitana, it is useful to know which armor move to use for which situation as there is no universal armored move that works every time outside of EX Throat Slice, which is one of her least damaging armored reversals and leads to nothing. You don't want to miss an opportunity to land an EX Rising Blade. I made a thread on the Kitana boards about my findings for anyone who is interested.
