For me personally the utility of the command grab alone makes it my preferred variation. The pressure you have is amazing and even though his ticks being neutered sucks we can still stagger into it or d1,d3,d1,2 into it.
Let's look at those scenarios:
D12: pushes them too far away on hit to land it. Only usable on block, but not cancellable into the DBF1 anyway and at that point you're better off using a real toward throw for arm heat and the KB.
D1: you'll whiff overhead on hit. Only usable on block. Probably the only situation where this is still useful.
D3: you'll whiff overhead on hit. If they're blocking, you'll whiff because they're blocking low. There's no scenario where D3 works unless they block the D3 and then stand up expecting an overhead, which makes no sense because Jax has no D3 string that ends in an overhead. You'd have to basically condition them to fear the B2, but that has such a long windup and is so easy to poke out that I don't see this being a real scenario.
The problem with all of them now is that landing your poke actually fucks you over, there's no starter that reliably will land the tick throw on hit and by the time you hit confirm and realize it's going to whiff, you're already done with the input because of how fast the cancel has to be to hit all four inputs. If they are blocking in
one scenario (D1) at you get the command grab, great, but now your choice is either:
• waste two bars making it "worth it" for a paltry 18% damage with tight input timings
• waste one bar for 16%.
• use it to get 7-12% damage depending on your 2 timing being tight enough and let them attempt a wakeup.
It's just a shitty move now and only worth trying for the 1KB a match.
