Yeah her kicks felt fun for cornering and punishing things I could bait the computer into, but once cornered it felt like she had very little in the way of safe blockstrings.
Her blockstrings are all about setting the opponent up for her safe distance. 23f2 is your go-to blockstring, inputting df2 will end it in the staffgrab normal for extra meter gain, pushback, and damage in case f2 hits. 12df4/df2 is your other blockstring. But in every case, Jade is about spacing and that is why she feels so out of place in a game of pressure.
Everything kept ending in recovery that got her nailed by stuff.
Whiffing with Jade is what makes her so frustrating to play. Your safe options are meant to set people up for the big stuff, but the big stuff either gets you blown up, or gets you very little in the way of winning the match altogether. Jade is a character that you need to absolutely love in order to endure playing. She has her moments of triumph and on the highest level, due to her options, she's a hard counter to all of the cast except for Kenshi. (who is by far not as bad a matchup as certain people believe, it's just a very steep learning curve in there.)
Its why she felt like she had potential to me, but that it didn't quite get realized. Just my knee jerk reaction since I only experienced her story stuff, but I couldn't pressure in the corner with her and stuff thrown kept leaving me open more than others I had used.
Her cornergame is second only to Jax actually. Even higher level players than myself will agree that if I read them right in the corner, it's a bundle of pain and some of them even forfeit the round in favor of meter gain if I get them there, and they sacrifice a third of their hp to get out of there in the final round, because Jade is the weakest mid-screen and the strongest near the corner a sweep away from the enemy.
Kind of gave me the reaction I read above.
She will. As long as you play Lao, Kenshi, Sonya, and other high-tiers, you'll love this game, but stay away from the "low tier" if you know what's good for you. I whole-heartedly wish I stayed with Kitana instead of Jade when I decided to use her instead, for Challenge Tower #300 back in 2011 May. I'm a one-character player, unfortunately, and Jade has given me great times and horrible times too.
Stryker felt about the same in his own way except he wasn't about cornering it was about zoning, but his zoning and poke game felt too unsafe like it could be checked by a ton of folks. I got confirmed on that vs Ermac. Pretty much used roll and throw into a few gunshots here and there along with baton sweeps to take that one.
I know little about Stryker.
@Espio
If there is an MK10 (if? yeah its a LOCK) I'd like to see Jade revisited only safer. She seems like a fun concept in her tools, just not very rewarding compared to a bunch of the others I used. Do Jade or Stryker have many people maining them?
Jade has a small community of her own but we are praying to God for a patch here. Some gave up on it, I have faith yet. As for MK10... whoever the lady was who possessed her at the end of her story, I hope will make her into a goddess against Shinnok.
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