You can get instinct from combo breaking, if I remember correctly.
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That requires white life. You gain instinct by taking damage and combo breaking the white life.
Nope. Go into training and set dummy to break on autos. Do a light opener into light autos and tell me how much you have taken away from the dummy.
I just took off about 30-35% of one bar and he has full instinct.
Iāll go double check in a bit.
His instinct is easily among the strongest in the game.
TJ would probably be stronger in many peopleās hands if he didnāt have the last breath mechanic, because they wouldnāt feel compelled to throw away a massive advantage in exchange for a chance to survive one extra hit.
Is that how it works? Because that would explain a LOT of the inconsistency Iāve had.
I had assumed it was just Arbyās shield throwing it off but I noticed on my other characters that Iād get full Instinct around 55% sometimes after testing pure damage was about 80%.
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Really? Being safe on nearly every special you have and being able to toss super unreactable overheads and lows at the opponent in disgusting, frame trappy ways (that again, are all safe) isnāt a comeback tool? Are you sure about that?
TJās powerline in instinct covers a stupid amount of space really, really, fast, and is (you guessed it) safe on block when done in instinct. Heck, it might even be āplusā considering how fast his next normal action can come out. You could also do something like heavy tremor->instinct cancel, which would put you at point blank range for whatever the heck youād like to do next, if you donāt just manage to open up the opponent outright.
Wulfās instinct is useless except at point blank range. Soās Hisakoās for the most part. TJās instinct lets him close space extremely quickly, and makes sure that itās āhis turnā after heās there.
TJās defense isnāt the strongest in the game, certainly, but he can clip standard jumps in neutral just fine. For the characters with crazy aerial nonsense, TJās AAās arenāt all that much worse than anyone elseās - everyone struggles to properly AA those characters.
Wulf canāt zone at all. Neither can Thunder. This is only a serious negative if the characterās tools do not allow him to deal with zoning or otherwise position himself in an ideal space. TJ can do both, even if he isnāt especially potent in traditional footsies.
Being in the middle of everything doesnāt make you the worst. It puts you in the middle of things.
Some characters mix up better depending on the situation, but it is not at all obvious to me that TJ is deficient on this account. He has (safe) high/low mixups, a command grab, and probably the best and most potent use of flipout in the game. There are characters in KI who can have a hard time opening you up, but TJ isnāt one of them.
TJās normals arenāt the best in a lot of situations. He also has fast stagger normal target combos though, and he has powerline to invalidate some footsies from other characters. TJ has good buttons and options, you just need to know what to press and when.
This is perhaps an indication that a character is difficult to play well. That does not correlate with how āgoodā a character is however. Fulgore is difficult to play well also.
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Itās mostly because when you do get instinct on the first round people donāt feel compelled to use it because by that time they are almost dead anyway. Itās kinda for good reason though sometimes. However itās when they keep the instinct for the whole match then only get last breath chance. Itās makes TJ players really easy to deal with because then thereās no instinct to worry about.
Itās the same way in destiny with warlock sunsinger class. Everyone just picked fireborn for every situation because āI want another chance.ā or āitās a lifeline when ā ā ā ā happens bro.ā
I still pick the Fire Jesus perk. Itās something to fall back on, but I do use my super for Grenade and melee regeneration in most cases.
Well, he does get the ability to make his super long range high/low plus on block soā¦not ENTIRELY useless. 
Eh, if I did play warlock SS itās either song of flame of the other one. firebornās too limited for me.
Remember people, TJ still gets to use half of his instinct speed boost if he saves it for last breath. So heās not really throwing away all of his instinct to come back, heās only wasting half of it so itās not like he wonāt get to go ham with it for a bit.
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Heās throwing away more than just half instinct time thoughā¦ heās also throwing away his ability to use it as a reversal, to make a mixup safe (ie, tremor or shadow uppercut), or to generate frame advantage. He gets half his instinct time and then has to waste more of it by taking a mixup or catching a zoner.
Iām really surprised itās still used at all, to be honest. The extra hit you get is almost never worth this cost.
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Except that he isnāt usually. If a character doesnāt have a last-breath mixup prepared beforehand, then theyāre going to back away in the meantime and get as far as they can from TJ and make him chase them. If they do have a last breath mixup (and many characters do), then they get to meaty TJ with that mixup, force him to guess, and then in the meantime make him waste more instinct time having to down+back or jump+back or throw tech or whatever. TJ rarely gets more than a few moments of useful instinct pressure off of last breath.
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Why canāt i jump after two blocked reckonings with gargos
Was a bug, and they fixed it.
Muh buggy gargos
Well, not exactly, he only gets to be plus on the low option =P overhead is still punishable (not just negative), even if FCāed.
Not to say that it isnāt good. Hamstring has really good reach and low profiles sooo many stuff. Itās really an amazing tool with FC available. But itās not a plus on block (or even safe) mix-up, not really.
FC does make overhead > shadow move safe, though, but that requires meter.
Thatās the cost TJ has to pay for having the best costumes in the game. Man that cool cat has some fresh looking accessories! 
Whereās the lie?
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Uh, like neutral? Back in season 2 I broke down the neutral options Jago had against the powerline machine. Even after introducing some difficult tech to counter powerline itself, each of TJās options covered its own wide swathe of Jagoās options, forcing Jago players to come up with a read to come out on top. Thereās no footsies going on here. The worst thing Jago can do is throw a fireball. Little has changed in season 3 to disrupt this situation. TJ wins the neutral, it isnāt even close.