Eddy Wang
Skarlet scientist
For this, i want you guys to look at balance, gameplay design according to the game mechanics, try to breakdown a character as a whole rather than just focus into a single aspect which can be bothersome for many.
Be wary that whatever you post here, is just your own opinion, anyone can agree to disagree but in the end, what i really want to see, is how many characters will be listed in this thread by multiple persons.
I will start of course.
The top 5 best ones IMO
5. Aquaman (IGAU)
Aquaman at his ed boon introduction ppl were calling it Boring, and how a character which its powers come from the sea can be useful, i gotta admit that at this point i didn't knew much about DC characters at all, and Aquaman was the first one i tried in Injustice when it came out.
I gotta say, he felt incredibly firm, amazing control and very good normals, good walkspeed, he was also the introduction of priority normals with no absurd range.
Aquaman could fight footsies mostly like anyone before in past NRS games, and he got a way to try launch ppl out and stay safe if that was the case using his scoop with his trait to soft punishing attacks allowing to block after the first hit, of course in the end he became top 5 in the game if not top 3.
4. Scorpion (MKX)
After the disaster Scorpion was in MK9, NRS did justice to him in MKX, at least in two variations incredibly variety, great walkspeeds and good normals, hard punishing and kept his restands mixups, punishable if played risky but there wasn't really no need to use takedown mixups to open people up at the highest level, which was actually part of the play, a fair introduction to people who never played fighting games with Ninjutsu, and a character to comeback later on either on Ninjutsu or Hellfire more characters in future deserve Scorpion's treatment.
3. Jade (MK9)
Anyone, i'm saying, ANYONE who tried jade in MK9 would immediately main her, Jade was one of the coolest designs NRS ever did to a fighting game character even now, also they did Justice to her since UMK3 and MKT, which gave her some interesting moves and so on, but they also sinned because she was nerfed for no reason, the projectile flash would let her invulnerable to projectiles and the armor glow would basically turn jade into a walking tank, who could armor through any hit, sadly it also did double damage to her and she really sucked in general, pretty sad because she used to be good before the nerf.
2. Kabal (MK9)
While ppl called Kabal broken, Kabal is one of those rare gems that came from a though of technical concept, the simple fact that he could cancel his nomad dash gave him a huge variety, really heavy in execution, very good pressure even without overhead and low combo starters Kabal was a really strong character in MK9 that others characters were found pretty tough to keep up with, i still think ppl started to blame Kabal more, he was indeed broken, but only because he could dominate everyone else in all aspects of the game, he was one patch away of being balanced and he would become a pretty fun character to fight against as he was fun to use.
1. Skarlet (MK9)
Imagine a character with jason ultra armor that can cancel into a launcher and when it finishes she can move with 2 hits of armor for free at the end.
No doubt, the controversy character which even today ppl say she was not that good, and some say she was very good and some say she was an ok character.
I think the fact that Skarlet had the most powerful armor move in the game and she was a meter reliant character and could also build this same meter that fast she was one of the strongest in the game, while her mixups were somewhat easier to block for some godlike ppl, blocking her pressure would actually build her meter much faster than the entire cast raising her defensive options at much faster rate than most, so one factor affected the other, either you block her correctly and fight a skarlet with a bunch of armor in defense to bait trades, pass zoning, bait armor you name it, or you don't let her start anything or build meter in first place, on top of all that, her walkspeed was pretty awesome as well as her normals and strings, but her gameplan wasn't that easy to come by, but once mastered it was golden.
5 disasters
5.Sonya (MKX)
Basically the 2 strings characters from MKX, before the final version it was an OH to low fest on every knockdown and made sonya super Boring IMO, strings that ocupy a lot of space for no reason, Demo was something else entirely but not only they took away the fun part of her, for a reason. Mk9 was way more fun than this one even if her main game was d4~military stance
4.Stryker (MK9)
One of the less though outs characters in MK9, a complete disaster and the only time i've seen stryker looking good was when Espio used him against a Baraka player once in MK9 life time, the slowest normals in the world, no actual mixups, no good walkspeed, everything about Stryker was bad in MK9.
3.Baraka (MK9)
At some point i started to think, NRS had no ideia what to do with Baraka, he sucked in so many levels, and should definitely hang out with Stryker and Jade, trash tier for life lol. Baraka i still think that he was just there for legacy reasons his moves were only designed to look good, and that's it, he also didn't had any launcher which really didn't help him at all along with his mediocre strings and normals.
2.Cyborg (IGAU)
LOL, dafuq is this NRS, what kind of trait is this, seriously, i don't even know where to begin, definitely one of the worse characters ever
1. Kung Lao (MKX) / Kenshi (MKX)
pretty meh, a piece of advice NRS, if one character is good in the previous game, there is no reason to make them absolute shit on future installments, this will only piss off people that mained them, for everyone who mained this characters across the board i feel sorry, u guys got the T4 to T5 Jin treatment and none of you deserved it.
I can't say much for Kenshi, but i can say for Lao, first thing that really didn't like, the Walkspeed, even PL who is the jump champion he said when KL appeared for the first time on a trailer back in 2015 that he didn't really liked KL walkspeed, his normals were mostly minus full of gaps, and lots of inconsistencies either a string will connect or not with spin on right ranges and heights, this is the most inconsistent character in MKX, and i hopefully we don't see a disaster like this again.
KL was super fun to use in MK9, can't say i feel the same way about him in MKX in any variation and i tried all of them.
well these are my choices, pretty sure you guys have your own, share your opinion and even your 5 characters you think are work of art and 5 that are just a disaster.
Be wary that whatever you post here, is just your own opinion, anyone can agree to disagree but in the end, what i really want to see, is how many characters will be listed in this thread by multiple persons.
I will start of course.
The top 5 best ones IMO
5. Aquaman (IGAU)
Aquaman at his ed boon introduction ppl were calling it Boring, and how a character which its powers come from the sea can be useful, i gotta admit that at this point i didn't knew much about DC characters at all, and Aquaman was the first one i tried in Injustice when it came out.
I gotta say, he felt incredibly firm, amazing control and very good normals, good walkspeed, he was also the introduction of priority normals with no absurd range.
Aquaman could fight footsies mostly like anyone before in past NRS games, and he got a way to try launch ppl out and stay safe if that was the case using his scoop with his trait to soft punishing attacks allowing to block after the first hit, of course in the end he became top 5 in the game if not top 3.
4. Scorpion (MKX)
After the disaster Scorpion was in MK9, NRS did justice to him in MKX, at least in two variations incredibly variety, great walkspeeds and good normals, hard punishing and kept his restands mixups, punishable if played risky but there wasn't really no need to use takedown mixups to open people up at the highest level, which was actually part of the play, a fair introduction to people who never played fighting games with Ninjutsu, and a character to comeback later on either on Ninjutsu or Hellfire more characters in future deserve Scorpion's treatment.
3. Jade (MK9)
Anyone, i'm saying, ANYONE who tried jade in MK9 would immediately main her, Jade was one of the coolest designs NRS ever did to a fighting game character even now, also they did Justice to her since UMK3 and MKT, which gave her some interesting moves and so on, but they also sinned because she was nerfed for no reason, the projectile flash would let her invulnerable to projectiles and the armor glow would basically turn jade into a walking tank, who could armor through any hit, sadly it also did double damage to her and she really sucked in general, pretty sad because she used to be good before the nerf.
2. Kabal (MK9)
While ppl called Kabal broken, Kabal is one of those rare gems that came from a though of technical concept, the simple fact that he could cancel his nomad dash gave him a huge variety, really heavy in execution, very good pressure even without overhead and low combo starters Kabal was a really strong character in MK9 that others characters were found pretty tough to keep up with, i still think ppl started to blame Kabal more, he was indeed broken, but only because he could dominate everyone else in all aspects of the game, he was one patch away of being balanced and he would become a pretty fun character to fight against as he was fun to use.
1. Skarlet (MK9)
Imagine a character with jason ultra armor that can cancel into a launcher and when it finishes she can move with 2 hits of armor for free at the end.
No doubt, the controversy character which even today ppl say she was not that good, and some say she was very good and some say she was an ok character.
I think the fact that Skarlet had the most powerful armor move in the game and she was a meter reliant character and could also build this same meter that fast she was one of the strongest in the game, while her mixups were somewhat easier to block for some godlike ppl, blocking her pressure would actually build her meter much faster than the entire cast raising her defensive options at much faster rate than most, so one factor affected the other, either you block her correctly and fight a skarlet with a bunch of armor in defense to bait trades, pass zoning, bait armor you name it, or you don't let her start anything or build meter in first place, on top of all that, her walkspeed was pretty awesome as well as her normals and strings, but her gameplan wasn't that easy to come by, but once mastered it was golden.
5 disasters
5.Sonya (MKX)
Basically the 2 strings characters from MKX, before the final version it was an OH to low fest on every knockdown and made sonya super Boring IMO, strings that ocupy a lot of space for no reason, Demo was something else entirely but not only they took away the fun part of her, for a reason. Mk9 was way more fun than this one even if her main game was d4~military stance
4.Stryker (MK9)
One of the less though outs characters in MK9, a complete disaster and the only time i've seen stryker looking good was when Espio used him against a Baraka player once in MK9 life time, the slowest normals in the world, no actual mixups, no good walkspeed, everything about Stryker was bad in MK9.
3.Baraka (MK9)
At some point i started to think, NRS had no ideia what to do with Baraka, he sucked in so many levels, and should definitely hang out with Stryker and Jade, trash tier for life lol. Baraka i still think that he was just there for legacy reasons his moves were only designed to look good, and that's it, he also didn't had any launcher which really didn't help him at all along with his mediocre strings and normals.
2.Cyborg (IGAU)
LOL, dafuq is this NRS, what kind of trait is this, seriously, i don't even know where to begin, definitely one of the worse characters ever
1. Kung Lao (MKX) / Kenshi (MKX)
pretty meh, a piece of advice NRS, if one character is good in the previous game, there is no reason to make them absolute shit on future installments, this will only piss off people that mained them, for everyone who mained this characters across the board i feel sorry, u guys got the T4 to T5 Jin treatment and none of you deserved it.
I can't say much for Kenshi, but i can say for Lao, first thing that really didn't like, the Walkspeed, even PL who is the jump champion he said when KL appeared for the first time on a trailer back in 2015 that he didn't really liked KL walkspeed, his normals were mostly minus full of gaps, and lots of inconsistencies either a string will connect or not with spin on right ranges and heights, this is the most inconsistent character in MKX, and i hopefully we don't see a disaster like this again.
KL was super fun to use in MK9, can't say i feel the same way about him in MKX in any variation and i tried all of them.
well these are my choices, pretty sure you guys have your own, share your opinion and even your 5 characters you think are work of art and 5 that are just a disaster.