I kinda am a Thin Ice Main at this point, since I’ve played him exclusively in most serious matches for the last month or so.
I agree and disagree with some points people make here based on my personal experience fighting as sub and fighting other sub players:
F2: it should be a little slower to make it reactable. At the moment Sub players rely too heavily on the mix up, even in thin ice. It should be a couple frames slower, maybe 22 frames would be ok. I actually get beat out of it all the time, the move is pretty bad outside of oki situations tbh. It’s a cool KB whiff punish but also very unreliable. The move is not broken whatsoever, but I agree the mix should be toned down just a tiny bit.
I feel like f2 is the only thing people really have an argument to complain about. If they nerf f2 I feel like other things about the character need to be addressed in order to keep him balanced. Sub really is not that great if you take away his mix up, let’s be honest.
The only thing I want to see get buffed, if they nerf f2 (which at this point I assume they will) are the following:
His d1 is basically good since it has 6f startup and is -6 (I feel like this is what a d1 should be kind of at on block), BUT it whiffs all the time. I am not exaggerating here, go play Sub yourself, his d1 whiffs in the weirdest situations, there are a few matchups where counterpoking basically becomes impossible (Sonya, Scorpion, Geras, Erron Black, Baraka and more). This moves hitbox needs a fix, it’s not ok to not be able to play a huge part of the games meta.
His d3 is kinda bad too I feel, the angle and range is hella weird, it’s kinda inconsistant, you are never sure whether it might hit or not. I am not a fan of it. Also 9f is prettyyy slow for the range it has. Other characters have way better options.
The d1 and d3 make it so oftentimes you cannot enforce anything besides b3, since NOTHING else hits mid. Basically one of the reasons why sub players rely on f2 and b3, everything else gets low profiled and you cannot make them stop neutral ducking without these moves.
F4 is not a problem for the same reason. What can he get from it? D1, d3, b3, everything else can be low profiled, f2 is a 15f move if you go for it after a blocked f4. You block the follow up to f4 and then it’s your turn again, voila! Everything besides the things mentioned above is not at all guaranteed and you should be able to react.
