I'm really looking forward to the new Kotal. Of course it hurts him that b1 is a high, but I totally accept that for the buffs he's getting and the new context of the game.
The new context of the game is that jumpins are more antiairable, running is a worse way to get in, run cancel pressure is worse, overheads are worse so high/low games are worse, there are fewer heavily advantaged moves so frame traps are worse, and there are fewer armored launchers for damaging escapes. As a result, being able to control the midrange game with strong footsies & antiairs will be even more important, and not having the best armored moves to interrupt oppressive pressure will be less important. Sounds like our guy to me!
I'm really stoked to control the midrange with stronger f1 & f12. Those tools have always had great range and control, but now f1 being -2 with more pushback and f12 being just -1 instead of both being -6, they're so much more useful. D4 on hit jailing into f1 now actually matters!
I'm also excited to pressure with b32 both starting from outside the b3's range in footsies and starting from up close. Having a forward moving, meterless, plus on block normal string is gonna be sick.
I still think there's a strong role for b1. B12 from far footsies is still legit. And if someone wants to risk neutral ducking a b1, they now risk getting hit by safe f1 or advantaged b32 or even moonshot f2. It's not like he lacks for strong mids.
I'm also really happy that jump ins will be hittable before their hitboxes come out because that means Kotal's antiairs will be even stronger. At the same time, he still has that far range where empty jumping leaves him too far for most antiairs but j1 can touch the opponent, meaning he can still attack credibly from the air. That might even be more important now because from max range j1 he'll be able to land with safe f12 to take up all the space.
Also, blood god's poor defensive options are now less important because the game is less about having to deal with offensive bs and more about control. Since I think Kotal will be stronger in the midrange and characters can't punish with run into whatever as well, he might be able to get more totems up in the neutral game. Defense totem going away faster kinda sucks on one hand, but on the other it means he has more control over which totem is out at any one time.
As for war god, I'm really interested to see what f1's greater pushback looks like for the context of canceling into sword mixups. It would be sick if f1 pushed opponents into max low sword range for better safety, or if it pushed them far enough that they'd have a harder time interrupting f1 to sword toss or if sword toss would start from far enough that it'd end up with more than +13 and +10 on ex. No armor on ex overhead hurts him, but that's a gamewide change so I'm not sure it makes him any worse relative to the rest of the cast.
The b1 nerf definitely hurts sun god since it's such an important tick into command grab. But again, neutral ducking against Kotal is risky! And in the context of this patch, just having a command grab at all is strong because the other main mixups (overhead/low and frame traps) are worse. F1 doesn't tick into command grab, but if you're doing f12 all day because it seems like you'll probably be able to do f12 all day, you might be able to squeeze a f1 into command grab in as well. In any case, he has other buttons that tick into grab, and you don't always need to tick into it anyway. Y'all know you can ex grab combos from hits right? What about f1 ex db2 in footsies, get ex grab on hit & safe f12 on whiff?
I'm excited!
There's still s1,d3,d4, for tick throws and now that people can't duck the choke sg still seems just as good.
