We're in the same situation. It's like no character other than Noob "clicks" for me. I've fooling around with Kabal, another strong and honest character. But I'm still stuck with Noob. Kinda like I stuck with Sektor ever since he was released in MKX.
The problem right now I feel is that the current top tiers overshadow characters like Kabal or Noob. What current problems do you see now with Noob?
In a nutshell: he's too high risk/low reward, and there are too many characters who can do what he should be able to do.
B1 1+3 is death on block and can't be special canceled into anything to keep him safe or give him pushback. Sindel, Baraka, Scorpion, etc, get that for free.
F2/F221 get blown up by anyone who knows the matchup.
112, 113, and 212 all start with a high. 112 having the gap isn't a big deal to me, though, because you can make mindgames out of it.
There's no reason on Earth to ever block high against him, because B3 is only really useful in Seeing Double.
Outside of the universal Throw KB (which he can now only get one of per fight), he has ONE truly viable KB in the B1 1+3 2 counter.
Running Clone, his only universal projectile which isn't really a projectile because it goes away if you get hit, is ass.
Pitch Black is a variation made entirely out of Shadow specials, yet somehow NONE of them contribute at all to the 10 Shadow KB, which is barely worth going for even in Seeing Double due to how bad Running Clone is.
Dark Sabbath has one of the best projectiles in the game in Spirit Ball, but also has one of the most blow-upable moves in the game in Sickle Teleport, and an Amp Teleslam that's not only a royal pain in the ass to open someone up well enough to hit them with, but it also going to get Breakaway'ed half the times you manage to get it.
And Shadow Slide, which compliments ALL of his strings and normals, makes his B3 actually worth being afraid of, and would move him way up the viability chart if it were ever made a universal special, makes Seeing Double so much better than DS and PB that you'd be hindering yourself by not using it.
This is why I get as mad about this game as I do; I don't understand how we went from MKX, where even if you hated the meta and the Run button and all of that, you can't really deny the amount of work and care and iniquity that went into every single variation in that game...to characters like Noob, Shao Kahn, Kollector V3, Skarlet, etc., whose variations feel like they were just pieced together with no real thought in mind as to how they would stand up to everyone else. Further proof in my opinion that the whole variation system was never supposed to be the norm in this game. I'm not saying that out of bitterness or anger; I'm saying that from a design standpoint, that's what this whole system has looked like since they implemented it. Whether they weren't given the funds from WB that they would've needed to fully balance out an open custom competitive meta, or they just decided not to take this game that far, I don't know. But there are few characters in the game who are as held back by it as Noob is.
