Wait what? Who ever said she wasn't strong with these changes? We used to consider her low tier and now we are all saying she could be potential high tier (at least myself) or upper mid tier at worst.
I will say that I put Mileena just about equal to my beloved Sonya, and for me that's good enough. I 100% agree with you, Mileena is good. I think a lot of the confusion comes from people missing where we got buffs after complaining about her (Pre-September) and September she still had some legitimate bugs. MY whole issue was not having a check for +2 strings like 1, 12, etc. Now we have d3 and I'm fine with that. What I DIDN'T consider was:
Literally Mileena's only huge weakness (and it was one that had a great impact) was the fact that she couldn't escape out of many frame traps or pressure by poking like other characters in the game. She had to rely on her full combo punishable roll to get out of rushdown. They now got rid of her biggest flaw completely and in turn not just gave her a 7F or 8F poke, but gave her the FASTEST version of a poke at 6 frames. This has many side effects and for sure puts Mileena under the category of characters that do not have any glaring weaknesses at all.
I didn't consider the way that d1 being 6 frames could shift the balance of things, BUT when it was 9 frames before it just wasn't worth it due to the move's *horizontal* hitbox sometimes whiffing. The vertical has never (to me) been an issue. Horizontally, it sometimes goes garbage on me. I'd be fine with it moved to 7 or 8 frames, but at the 9f it was before, there was just too much of a question on whether it would reach. It did admittedly seem to become better each patch though.
This is where I think people get confused about the situation.
For example, Foxy was trying to explain to everyone a few months back that Mileena has the tools to be super safe and effective that way, where as the main complaints from Mileena players on TYM was that she was way too unsafe and risky, mainly because she was played as a yolo 50/50 character.
Let's just acknowledge that maybe things aren't set in stone yet. Characters are evolving.
Now, lastly. This is where I personally take a bit of issue. I'll openly admit, I'm not the world's best Mileena (not even close). I'm trash among the bunch lol. But without F0xy telling us specifically what he was talking about, it was really difficult for anyone to truly take away what he means. Even now, he doesn't speak too specifically. He most recently said "her true mid that can whiff punish any low profile move" but a non--Mileena player might not even know what he's talking about.
F0xy *from what I have seen* has typically been VAGUE in terms of Mileena. "You can play as safe as you want" doesn't have the same tone as "You rubbish lot! You are doing b12 into b12 when you should be doing b12 and then step back to see what they do" or something like that. I'm not dissing Foxy, maybe vague is his style. But it's difficult to get people stuck in their own heads to see the picture you're painting if you don't turn around the canvas.
Anyways, everyone's crazy. Mileena is good, beta Mileena is great (for the way I wish to play). For me, she's now an equal to Sonya in terms of using tactics that I'd like to use (While having tools for different situations) so I'm happy with her. I guess she could be top 5 in beta, I'm still not convinced but if she is then I'd say most of the characters are pretty damn close.
Seems like just about everyone has their special brand of dirt now
