The real deal breaker between tempest and buzz-saw is the damage. I feel that's the one area that gives one variation a clear advantage over the other, but it's a significant one. The fact that you can get so much damage off of literally any touch, including an anti air is a pretty big deal.
Everything else, you can find positives that balance each other out in both variations. For instance during pressure, tempest does tremendous chip, but buzzsaw has mix-ups and a better chance at opening people up, especially due to the threat of ex spin after a blocked low hat, which once you get the opponent to respect, gives you even more continuous pressure. Ex spin in tempest is a fool proof anti-air, but ex spin in buzz-saw is ridiculously good in the neutral, has insane range, and multi-layers of armor that beats pretty much every armored move in the game. Both corner games are pretty sick IMO, though tempest requires you to use meter for ex hat spin whereas buzz-saw can do it with 50/50's (b22~low hat or b2~lowhat), especially on knockdown (b2 vs. low hat). Also, both variations give you plenty of throw opportunities, which is a big deal in this game and a tad underutilized.
I feel buzz-saw is definitely better in the neutral, given the combination of low hats and ex spin, and has better zoning (if orbiting hats touched the opponent any time he makes contact with you kinda like Black Adam's trait it would probably be better than buzz-saw in the neutral. But that would be a bit ridiculous). However, tempest has the kind of damage that is too enticing to ignore, especially since you only need meter for ex spin and extending block strings. Buzz-saw requires probably the same meter usage except the reward isn't as big (setting up ex low hats and stuff doesn't guarantee you anything, and the damage off of an ex spin conversion is pretty meh).
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