I feel like Possessed is only called potato, because I win with him, and then people go into practice mode and do his combos, which aren't very hard.
In a lot of match ups vs good players, you have to be very resourceful to win with Kenshi in general. No one really understands that because they just don't play the game and hate on me IMO. Things aren't so potato when your D1 is getting low profiled and your meaties are not the best. Easy combos is the last concern when playing this and probably any fighting game at a high level. His armor is def potato but you're not gonna kill people with 13% for a bar.
Due to having a 13 frame D4 and 13 frame mid, Kenshi has to block first very often from sweep range. Characters like HQT and Scorpion are very potato in this instance, where Kenshi again, has to be pretty resourceful and patient.
Potato areas = armor and combos
Non-potato areas = counter-poking, meaties, sweep range footsies, basically everything besides armor and combos, with the latter having nothing to do with high level play.