Then explain why his DP trades more real easily, because I’ve played him enough to know it trades a lot more often than you would expect. Because it being an airborne special lowering it’s priority to trade with heavies and outright lose against some specials is about the best way I know to explain that one, which again plays into the lowered priority category, not just the fact trailblazer is also naturally lower priority.
The stubby normals is also something very real, there are specials that most characters like Jago that have a cr.lk or cr.mk with a normal amount of perceived range can punish, but those attacks on Cinder are not as effective. If you go into training mode, and turn on hitboxes, the starting position the game puts you at a good spot to judge, and while Jago and Cinder have the same size cr.lk hitbox, Jago’s extends well past his foot and covers around 3/4 an entire tile, whereas Cinder’s is moved further back closer to his body, so while it’s the same size, this shift in position limits cr.lk’s reach to only 1/2 the square tile in front of him.
This may not seem like much, but it comes up from time to time when weighing in whether or not some specials are punishable on block or not by Cinder, because there are some instances where that extra length of attack box can allow Jago to punish on block based on positioning, but Cinder can’t. The same issue comes up with cr.mk as well.
While I understand you don’t want something like third degree combos to travel super far on whiff or have giant hitboxes, something like the reduced range on cr.lk sometimes affects your options on punishing certain moves, and you miss out on damage you otherwise would have if your character had a slightly more normalized reach. If I’m not mistaken, it’s a big reason people are mad at Capcom’s change to Ryu’s standing light.
The shorter range normals are real, just as the lower priority on his specials are too, but Cinder should be able to have some versatility without needing a pyrobomb because having a pyrobomb on the opponent before any kind of offense or defense isn’t always feasible.
At this point though, I’ve stated my case, and I’m kinda ready to just let it rest. I’ll accept whatever comes on a change list and adapt, but I don’t have to believe it’s justified.