While watching the KI Saucey Sweet last night, truthfully just waiting for the MKX team battle that didn't happen, Justin Wong was talking with some other notable KI community member about Jago while commentating. He had told Justin that he believed Jago was low tier to which Justin replied, paraphrasing, "he can't be low tier, just look at his tools," and then continued to make his case by conveying the point that the character has the tools for every situation he'll find himself in, even if the risk/reward isn't always in his favor.
Between the universal mechanics in MKX(armor, breakers, interactibles etc.) and how well of a job Netherrealm did with balancing out of the box, or at least after the first corrections patch, every character in MKX is in a position where they have some option, despite the risk/reward, in every situation they find themselves in.
And this connects to a point that R.E.O. also tried to convey in the past, of, "whether or not a character can be good without having a 50/50." As of now, the characters that are being considered low tier by the community are those that have a lack of ease in opening up the opponent in such a fast paced game or are unable sustain safe pressure.
At Combo Breaker, CORN Alucard took 3rd with Kotal Kahn, a character summarized by most as having negative pressure and unsafe mix ups, and Khaotic Raptor take 5th with Takeda, a character summarized by most as having slow mix ups, unsafe pressure and an inability to sustain a favorable neutral range for the neutral game. Despite not having unreactible 50/50's, or their inability keep players out, they were still able to consistently open their opponents up by other means.
Just because characters like Raiden or Erron Black are as good as they are, doesn't mean that characters that use methods requiring more patience or thought to open people up, are bad. If you were to tier the characters in this game honestly, based on their tools relative to conventional fighting games, along with the universal mechanics in MKX, rather than merely comparing them to the tool sets of the best characters in the game currently, the greater majority of lesser characters would probably be considered top(A) to high-mid(B) tier, with only a select few at mid(C) tier, if any.
For these reasons I think MKX is truly an amazing game, and I really hope it continues to grow competitively. Nobody would doubt GGA Dizzy's or CR Sonic Fox's ability to place as well as they did, regardless of their character choices, but to anyone watching, their characters certainly seemed as if they could handle their fair share, and then some. And that's the reason why other characters are considered as bad as they are; it's due to how many characters are as well equipped, or almost as well equipped, as both Raiden and Erron Black, arguably up to ten characters in my opinion.
With the belief that the lesser characters in the game are already fairly well equipped, it seems that tweaking down some of the over tuned components of the top tiers have would create better balancing than buffing more characters to the point of walking the line between S-tier and broken. After all, nerfs to the best characters, as small as they may be, can in turn be buffs for lesser characters.
Having said all that, I was interested to hear the opinions of players who want to be honest with themselves and admit their mains have tools that can be reasonably tuned down for balancing purposes to make the game even better, regardless of how they're currently viewed by the community, and possible solutions to making them more balanced and also people's opinions on the proposed changes.
Please only suggest tweaks for mains to ensure that suggestions are based on the highest possible level of gameplay.
I main Raiden and with my personal experience with the character, and seeing Dizzy's dominance, I feel the need to admit some aspects of Raiden that need to be tuned down. So here are my balance solutions and explanations, and a summary of how they work together and work with the character's design as an example:
Raiden:
F12 Block Advantage down from -3 to -5: This would make the window for counter poking 10 frames to beat out a follow up F1 from Raiden, ensuring that the entire cast has the universal option to throw as a counter poke. This string doesn't seem like it was intended as a block string anyway, as every character already has the option of counter poking out with either their D1 or D2 currently, but this change would allow for a universal interruption option and more wiggle room in general. Raiden still has the option to use meter to punish a counter poke.
Electrocute(DF2) Block Advantage down from -7 to -14: This would affect Raiden's option select from a B2 cancel, making it unsafe without meter usage, as currently the time this string is used on block is for the option select from B2. Currently the option select makes Raiden's 50/50 far too strong for it's reward of up to 41% meterless or up to 39% with a restand. His low option is already safe and he builds almost half a bar of meter on block, so with the incentive to go for the low, his overhead shouldn't be safe and should be a high risk/high reward option. The option to use meter for an option select to make the B2 safe will still remain from Vicinity Blast(DB2+Block). The frame data change would match Shocker's(DF2+Block) block advantage.
Shocker(DF2+Block) Active Frames down from 17 to 11: Currently it's active window is too long. The opponent can make the proper read against Raiden by neutral jumping to counter aggression and still get punished on the way down. Lower active frames could still allow for it's use to counter cross ups while removing the possibility for the opponent to be punished for making the right read.
Vicinity Burst(DB2+Block) Block Advantage down from 0 to -4: It's versatility against grounded opponents warrants that it be negative on block, regardless of meter usage. It can be used to check pressure and counter pokes, counter armored wake ups, and its application to Raiden's B2 option select could currently allow him to continue to pressure with his 6 frame F1 even when guessing wrong on his 50/50. This change would give a 9 frame window for counter pokes against Raiden to beat out a follow up F1. Raiden still has the option to use meter to punish a counter poke.
Stop Bolt(DB1) from Bolt(DB1+Block) can no longer be canceled on hit or block: Currently Raiden can use Stop Bolt as Bolt is blocked to create a lightning orb while still having Bolt hit, or as it hits for extra damage in combos. Seems like a bug, regardless of the difficulty to execute on block, as it is difficult to execute. This should be fixed.
Together these changes would make for a more fair back and forth game between Raiden as his opponent, giving his opponents a larger windows to counter poke between his safe aggression and create more opportunities for the opponent to punish. It forces Raiden to use the meter that he can build more quickly than most characters more often to make his high risk, high reward options safe, so he won't be sitting on as much meter for the threat of armor or for breakers.
