11 is not reactable, if it was you wouldn't constantly see people not reacting to it. You cannot see that your opponent has chosen to do 11 instead of 11212 within 1 frame, or 2 frames, or 3 frames, or 4 frames, so it might as well be plus 3 or 4 because by the time you react to it the Kung Lao player would have already inputted standing 1 or d4 or b3 or forward 2 several frames ago. 11 is a complete read. As for 11212, you still can't react to that within 3 frames. That's a read as well, at best you'd be able to react in 5 frames maybe but Kung is plus 2 at that point, not to mention the fact that there's always EX spin to fear or jump back dive kick, or he could simply block. The point is that the Kung Lao player is not at nearly as much risk as his opponent, meanwhile he's gaining a huge reward. The entire thing is complete guess and any wrong guess leads to 30% or more into an armor breaking setup into the same unbalanced guessing game.
If it wasn't so easy for the Kung player to get the opponent in his BS guessing game, then it'd be fair, but his combos all do excellent corner carry with good damage on top of that and there's no wakeup option because of orbital hat, so every combo Kung Lao lands he not only does great damage into great corner carry, but his opponent also loses his wakeup option and gets put in a completely unreactable guessing game that's in the Kung Lao player's favor that leads to potentially huge chip and meter gain for the Kung player or more 30% combos into the same setup if the opponent guesses wrong. Even if all of Tempest's strings were minus 6 except standing 1 he'd still be an A+ completely viable character.
He gets Grandmaster Sub Zero level corner carry into a hard knockdown into an armor breaking setup into an equally beneficial corner game but he doesn't sacrifice any of his midscreen damage to get it like Sub Zero does and Sub Zero doesn't get a free hard knockdown unless his opponent is already in the corner, yet GM Sub Zero still needs a damage nerf and so does Tempest Lao. The only way to make Tempest fair is to at least give him a 4-6% (probably just 4%) damage nerf and preferably to give the opponent a fair way out. They could also remove armor from EX spin but I wouldn't like that as much because it still leaves us with bad gameplay that is unfavorable guessing games. Guaranteed unfavorable guessing games are not only unfair but it's bad gameplay. If the risk reward was balanced or only slightly in the Tempest player's favor like most character's corner pressure games then it wouldn't be so bad, still poor gameplay but at least it's fair.
Tell me HOW ON EARTH being able to block break for 1 bar is any more braindead than trying to guess out of Tempest Lao's pressure. There are way too many options on the Tempest player's side to make brain power a significant aspect of getting out of his corner pressure. You guess when to poke, guess when to armor if you can, and if you guess wrong on all of his options that all lead to 30% or more into a hard knockdown, the match might as well be over, all because you ate a combo from midscreen that put you right in the corner into the setup. You can be the smartest guy in the world, but you can't see the future. Like I said, if you guess wrong it's another 30% combo into the same setup, if you don't guess you get chipped out while the Tempest player builds multiple bars of meter, and if you guess right with a poke you're still in the corner in the guessing game.
You telling me it's fair in fighting games to make reads as if I'm saying otherwise tells me how clueless you are. That's like saying it's fair to do big damage combos in fighting games. That's true, but what if 1 character does 30% and another does 50%? Tempest Lao's corner game is TOO strong, and it cannot be made any weaker so the best, most logical way to balance it is to give the opponent a way out for a reasonable price. It does not destroy Kung Lao's pressure game at all because it still costs a bar of meter, that's common sense. Tempest's strength becomes forcing his opponent to waste a bar just to get out of his bull shit, rather than him getting the bull shit for free. It still benefits Tempest for his opponent to lose a bar. He would still have to take a damage nerf on top of this because the Lao player gets 1 bar block breakers too, and he gains more meter than most characters so it would partially help him as well. If they just give him the damage nerf but don't make block breakers 1 bar, they could still possibly balance him but it wouldn't change how shitty his guessing based gameplay is. 1 bar block breakers would make MKX a much better game, I can only hope Paulo will see that.
