One of the talking points you guys had in this one was "arbitrary balance mechanics", referring to krushing blows and fatal blows. The idea being that the balance of characters may actually be bad but the system mechanics allow them to compete. On Fatal Blows, I think this is actually a fair point, we saw that early on in particular with release patch Frost who was trash but had a great Fatal Blow to help her steal a round. That's not really fun to have to play against or fun to have a bad character rely on that. But I really disagree with this whole premise about "arbitrary balance", and you guys don't give the system mechanics enough credit for how they keep the game balanced and how they contributed to imbalance in the past.
One of the biggest balance issues in past NRS games was just simple meter gain. Bo' Rai Cho can't build enough meter to sustain a gameplan that is as strong as Mileena's. Because NRS decided that Mileena should have tools that allow her to build more meter then Bo', it causes Mileena to have greater access to system mechanics(combo breaker, armor, EX moves) and makes the match tougher for Bo'. It wasn't that NRS designed a neutral that was unfun or unplayable in the matchup, it was just soiled by the arbitrary design around how supermeter works. MK11 meter system isn't perfect but it did fix that real and noticeable balance issue.
Back on FB's and KB's in MK11, take a low damage variation who isn't great but has something going for them, like maybe they got traps or strong neutral. When that character goes against a high damage character and gets hit, they can breakaway and reduce damage. When they need to be explosive, even if the character is not meant to be, they have access to Fatal Blow and D2 KB. Is that arbitrary balance? I guess so, but it helps keep that swaggy low damage character competing along with big combo guy and power zoner.
Also I think you guys didn't really acknowledge that Krushing Blows can actually be a very rewarding and interesting mechanic, outside of just one time big combo damage or comeback factor. Raiden's B2 mindgames are cool, Shang's B1D2 is a fun mixup, I like the one time use aspect of it and it looks fucking rad. It has none of the issues of Fatal Blows being too long or even over the top unrealistic.
Love the pod! Keep it coming