Hello.
Now I know at this moment you think OMFG it's this tard again coming here to tell me cage sucks and i'll get 10-0ed on all my matches.
Fortunately we have passed that point in time so I'll just tell you my objective experience of what worked and what not.
Let's go Shock Jock first as I'm guessing this is your variation of choice since you mentioned Caged Rage.
1. Caged Rage works a lot online, and on people who don't have Cage matchup experience. In all cases, if you cancel into it on block at a moment where someone is expecting you to cancel into something on block, you will get blown up. I have been full combo punished by Noob out of my level 3 caged rage, so that gap never goes away when you upgrade it.
However, you will get it most of the time (that is, if you're not playing the evo top 8 cyborgs that can react to it free) when canceling from points that nobody expects you to.
b3 Caged rage has the most success, as b34 is burned into the brain of everyone playing against Cage so they will not let go of block to punish/ uppercut you.
Once you leveled it up past 1, it becomes easier as it trades with most pokes and the opponent must really have Cage experience to properly punish you in the gap.
On matchups where forceballs do not whiff, I had success using it in the neutral from far away as people tend to neutral crouch force balls and instantly block if they see you coming, expecting an advanced b3 or f4. SYKE, it was a raw Caged Rage and you blocked it AHHAHAHAH
On most matches it will help you many times close out rounds or make people poke out and get hit by b34 or other strings.
However if you have a sparring partner like I do, and he will learn it over time and expect it, you will 100% get blown up for it each time making the move completely useless (which counts as strike 1 as why not to use this variation, which I'll cover later).
2. After an f44 knockdown we can meaty with our mids
))) Sorry, couldn't resist. I've found a shitload of people just neutral jump wakeuping against cage, which will make b34 whiff if you don't do it perfectly, And it's very hard to do so because of delayed wakeup. On knockdown I had the most success backing up out of the range of their wakeups and mix between b3 and f3. f3 will catch jumpers hoping to neutral jump your b34 and you can easily convert into chunky damage from it with dash 2, dash 121 ender of your choice.
3. 124 on block is not guaranteeing you anything. If you commit to any of those you will get full combo punished for your troubles. After +6 at that range, a simple walkback will make any follow up whiff and you will get blown up full combo each time. And everyone loves to walkback against Cage, so it's a no no.
A perfectly framed f4 will always lose to 7 frame and below pokes, and sometimes I even got full comboed out of it by a 7 frame jab starter.
However, online, you can expect people not to commit to being frame perfect so an f4 will connect and catch jumps as well. It's on you if you want to risk this after 124 or not. But in the majority of my matches (and my sparring partners are all justin wong wanabees so they lame out wherever they can and they just walk back) the only thing I can do is just throw a forceball out of spite.
In the corner however, you can do a mindgame of backing up a bit for their pokes to whiff, and b2 whiff punish them if they try to anything. Just don't try it on liu kang's f4 since it somehow eats up hitboxes and goes through your b2. The best thing here is to make them afraid of a d4 check and throw them and repeat.
Still you get nothing guaranteed, just mixups between d4, b2, and throw, and hope you guess right.
4. Cassie, and some other matchups with female hitboxes, means a long and boring match. If the Cassie is agressive, then you might have a chance to counter poke them into jailing 244 into nothing. Once you train them you do this, jail them into 2 throw and you might get some damage in. But if they are just walking back lowguns, it's game over. you have to learn the range where you can punish low guns with shadow kick and stay there most of the time and hope they lose it and do something.
Cassie's b2 eats up our d4, f4.b3 and f3, so if you're not frame perfect or if you think about throwing any of those in the neutral you will just get clipped by b2 into full combo.
It's a pretty fun matchup to test your nerves and finally understand the holes in the character. You will be reverted into a d4 hit into f3 - throw or f344 machine the entire match.
5. I have no idea here, sorry
I played the entire content head to toe before even starting to customize so i had a shitload of glasses from the start without knowing where I got them individually.
6. His pokes are great. Not godlike (no 6 framers here) but d1 and d4 will be your corner stone spam in the matchups where forceballs whiff.
d1 in 2 jail gets you the 2-throw or 244 mixup, and d4 into f3-throw or f344 mixup. This is his best tool and you will use it more than you want to.
d1 nutpunch and d4 nutpunch will catch mashers, but in long sets with good players, where they catch on to you doing this, they will wait out and full combo punish you forever until you get it out of your system.
7. Nut punch restand is +5. You can't use any of your starters as you will get d2 or poke spammed which means the mixup would be throw, d1 or d4, the latter which leads into the jailing throw mixups from above. That's pretty much it.
Some extra points:
8. When forceballs don't whiff, you will feel much better in the matchup. First, you have a legit zoning game where you can just backdash spam forceballs into sudden b34 or f4. As they will be forced to neutral duck, they will eventually get clipped by them for a confirm combo.
You will use ex forceballs to be as up to +7, but at the exact range 124 leaves you at +6, so the options are literally identical to that string.
However, here you can activate brass knuckles and get some shitload of chip with your forceballs. b34 ex fb, bait something into antother string in ex fb and fb, will get you arround 10-15% chip which is huge. d4 forceballs works wonders here as well.
9. Parry. Parry is quite good. It has a slow startup and you will hear people complain that it's useless because of this, in detriment of liu kang one.
But the biggest problem with the parry is not the startup.
Sure , you can't instareact to 10 frame starters and 8 frame parry them, but who does that anyway?
The biggest problem with parry, is the animation. Let's take Skarlet for instance. When she cancels a string into parry, it's EXTREMELY hard to realize if she just blocked after the string or did the parry, as her animation is identical.
For Cage, the animation is SUCH a strong giveaway, that they just need to wait for a split second and not commit, and they will instantly know you're in the parry. And since it lasts forever, it is literally a free combo fun for your opponent. There is no literally sane player alive that will actually hit cage in his parry after he sees the animation.
So you can't do it in small gaps, you can't do it on reaction, and you can't bait the opponent into attacking as the animation is a strong giveaway.
The only thing where this is good at is against wakeups, but god forbid they just stand up, because you can't cut it short like Skarlet and it lasts longer than Kangs, so it's a 50-50 whether you die or not.
10. This is why, against good players that learn the matchup and play long sets, it is irrelevant in my opinion to use Shock Jock. Caged Rage, Parry and Knuckles become useless. d1 nut and d4 nut will not have mileage at all.
Showstopper has unbreakable damage the same as Shock Jock has max damage. Max damage in showstopper is naturally bigger as you get 30% out of b34 and 33% out of f344 which is huge difference, as you have no KB to make up for damage loss.
The FB cancel glasses will net you some more survivability and you will most likely have some comebacks because of this, if you can get that first hit in that is.
11. Standing 1 anti air. This is the closest this game gets on the MK9 anti air level and it will beat up most of the shit this game throws at you. You should get this in your system as soon as possible because it is the best thing Cage has and it gets a shitload of mileage.
12. Talking where the character actually works (non whiffing forceballs), please don't believe all the clueless people saying Cage is a rushdown machine.
You will 100% get destroyed playing him rushdown because his pressure is entirely fake, as I have said above.
He is a neutral monster and a lame-it-out character, the same as Justin Wong said in his video. You will get the most success poking them, hitting them with half screen advancing b34 or f4 into forceball, and then walk back again and do it until they literally collapse from boredom and anxiety and start doing random shit.
When your forceballs hit on block, it gives you such a big space to just get out of contact whenever you want and be ultra annoying with the character. This is his biggest strength imo and should be played like this for maximum success. Now, if we could use this on the entire cast, that is. Which we can't. So we just stay there and dream.
That's about it. I know it sounds grim but the best way to form your personal opinion is to just continue playing him. You will have more success than you might think, but it's only because of the rarity of character online and nobody actually grinding matchups against him. But once you play against someone who had a long Johnny experience, you'll start to feel the matchup choking the life out of you and you'll wish you'd just char select Kabal or Liu Kang.