I do have to agree that things about her design seem a bit off. I understand that she’s supposed to be this risk/reward character... but honestly?
•112 full combo punishable?
•Most strings leaving her -8 or more with no pushback?
•Her only plus string (2334) being completely useless? (Meanwhile, Liu Kang’s functions the same but starts from a mid, ends in a mid, has a KB attached to it, and is more plus on block. Mileena’s starts with a high. Ends with a duckable high. And she can’t even jail into sais unless she equips the low version.)
•B1’s tragic range combined with the fact that it ends with a duckable high and full combo punishable mid. Why? I get that it’s a guess, but at least give the mid SOMETHING. (KB if only the kick lands?)
•Air sais taking a slot? Really? Air sais are about as iconic for Mileena as air fans are for Kitana. That ones really bizarre (part of me feels like they ran out of ideas and/or time for Mileena. She shares Terminator’s d3 animation for her d4, Jade’s f4 animation, and her b34 is a straight up copy and paste from her MK9 version. I’d argue her b2 is a reskinned version of Baraka’s, but that feels more like a stretch).
•f124 being full combo punishable. There’s not even a mixup there. It’s not like she can cancel the f12 into a low at all.
All these things lead to her customs being only chosen to cover her weaknesses. Her command grab and additional strings are damn near mandatory for her to be competitive, and her style ends up feeling a lot more streamlined than the likes of her fellow DLC counterparts.
Now, I truly do enjoy her. She’s Mileena after all. Her sais are an amazing zoning tool, her backdash is awesome, and I love her f1. But my god... there are some glaring issues with the way she’s designed lol