Zoidberg747
My blades will find your heart
I dont think anyone is saying he is top tier or even high tier though. All we are saying is he is probably viable in the right hands(that's what I've been saying anyway).I think Takeda is probably better than was thought, but we should have learned our lesson by now about assuming character tier placement from early Top 8's.
Remember Ares, Green Arrow, Rain, Cyber Sub Zero
Generally not a great idea. Better to just keep labbing and see where the chips fall.
Raptor already covered most of this but one of the great things about this string is it is a great conditioning tool and has ways to blow up your opponent for trying to beat it the same way every time:
So for example say you do f12 2+4 kunai the first time. If they try to armor through the gap you can just do f12, block the armor and punish. You could also end with a tele cancel instead but that only beats certain armor moves if done properly. You can also do EX kunai to blow up the armor or EX Fist flurry to get more damage. The whole string becomes one big mind game where with proper conditioning your opponents will be forced to guess what you are going to do next. Ive also been working on doing a tele cancel once, then the next time holding tele and releasing when they try and punish the cancel for even more pressure(I need to test this more though, might have just been a lack of MU knowledge on the opponents part).
If you add all those options with the fact that you can change up between f1 2+4 and f12 2+4 it can mess with opponents pretty well. You can also do the same things with his b21 string by doing b21 kunai, b21 tele cancel, b2 kunai, b2 tele cancel etc. The tele cancel can also not be blown up if the b21 is done at the right range. If the b21 hits you can hit confirm into EX spear for 37% 1 bar or if you have meter to spare you can hit confirm into EX Bf2 for a 45-46% 2 bar combo(I like ending rounds.games this way).
And before anyone says anything, no I don't think the character is super good. He is riskier and takes a lot more spacing/footsies in general and if he guesses wrong he can get punished big. But I also think he is viable.