What if thunder had both the dash and the L. bolt? It would work like this: you press the button, you get the dash AND a bolt hits the opponent. However, you can’t use the bolt again until you’ve used the dash first.
But the hew one works just as well. His old one helps him in his good match ups but doesn’t do much in his bad match ups.
While I do agree the new one doesn’t really do much for Thunder you can’t honestly think the old one was a useful move? All it was ever good for was trolling Sadiras and making the Thunder mirrors hilarious.
The move had little use as it was in higher level play. The tracking on the move got nerfed close to Maya’s release and from there it lost a great deal of usefulness, but even then, it’s usefulness was limited and questionable. Moves that used a lot of velocity could easily outrun the tracking on Call of Sky and evade the lightning strike, and projectile invincible moves easily made it laughable. Every character, even Sadira had an answer for it, on reaction. The moves immense startup and recovery made it a highly unsafe option even at the longest range. Even against zoner characters like Glacius, their fireball and zoning shenanigans were more than powerful enough to take on the move. IT WAS USELESS.
Most players could go an entire match without utilizing the move at all, and given the game’s frenetic pace, you just can’t reliably count on it to give you the kind of control in a match you need. It did nothing to alleviate Thunder’s biggest weakness of gaining ground on the opponent and breaking projectile/zoning games.
Again, the move was useless as a projectile. At best, it served a temporary game plan, but if you placed your hopes on the damage of the move, you have misplaced where your damage potential should come from. Basically, you are sacrificing full combo damage for a 10% projectile? I would rather work my way in and wreck house than settle for the pithy damage any day. And while it may the same move as instinct, you keep neglecting (conveniently) to mention its getting your instinct outside of the actual instinct mode, which is a VERY useful trait.
There is no denying is his invincible cross-up dash is really useful, so having access to it without popping instinct should make it a hot commodity. While he still will have to work on getting in, it does make it easier without resorting to one of your chief resources too early or wasting it to get to the opponent. The old Call of Sky kept you in place, had long animation, and gained you no ground on the opponent for a 0% chip damage move and an easily dodged projectile. It was a liability more than it was helpful, and a move like that has no place in his arsenal.
The only utility you can get out of it, simply, is against people who have no idea how to counter it, which limits that to mostly bronze tier players and beginners. Against good competition, it saw no use.
Again, you are probably playing players who have no idea how to counter it. All those characters can counter it and still play a safe long range game. Jago with the right timing can beat your Call of Sky with his fast fireball and shadow fireball, Spinal’s teleports can dodge them easily when timed correctly and get in on Thunder free, Glacius can puddle and move forward and never worry about it (or a hundred other options surprisingly), Orchid’s Fire Cat isn’t stopped by the lightning at all since it has no summon animation, and Fulgore…I’ve said it time and again, Thunder vs. Fulgore is the WORST matchup in the game. It is as lop-sided as Guile vs. Bison in SF4, and the one matchup not even his instinct can seem to change the tide.
Because the common grappler/tank archetypes usually don’t have projectiles, giving everyone a projectile isn’t a fix all for every situation and can actually make things worse, and again the move does nothing to solve Thunder’s actual problems of getting in.
I will give you one point though, when it worked it was kinda fun, but that is a rare moment that’s growing even more so every day the game goes on. The move, I guarantee, would be USELESS against any level of Shadow Jago player, given his teleport style dash could easily evade it and most of his moves have teleport style properties that could easily dodge it and get at you from any distance free, and his endokukens are super fast compared to Jago, so he could nail your summoning animation from long range without even thinking or trying.
Have you even tried to use the new Call of Sky dash buff in your game plan, or do you just like long distance battles, because it sounds like you might want to consider a character other than Thunder, like Kan Ra or something along those lines…
Also, No offense or any ill will intended at any point, but I honestly dislike the old move and it’s one of those things I don’t want to see happen again. If anything, I have a feeling Thunder is gonna get better for Season 3. I believe he’ll probably have some moves or something that makes use of the new Stagger mechanic. At the risk of earning @xSkeletalx’s disdain, “You’ll have a stagger to go with that Swagger.”
The old CotS may not have been very useful, but I still found a use for it - against jump-ins. Sure, it might not be great at higher-ranked players, who knew better than forward jump from far away, but for most players, I was able to knock them out of the sky quite easily. It was really just a matter of waiting. When I successfully hit them with it (which was more often then not when they were jumping), it gave me just enough time to dash in once or twice and start a long range normal (such as f+HP or standing HK) into a full-combo punish. You’re right in the sense that it might not have been great, but it WAS useful. You just had to know how to use it.
In contrast, I hate how the current CotS works. I almost never get enough time to activate it to begin with, even on a hard-knockdown due to its slow startup - the enemy often hits me with a wakeup (although it’s nice to know that you don’t lose the charge if you get hit). So, this leads me to use it from far away, where it’s generally safer (but not always). The problem with this is that I’m often forced to use it before I’m anywhere near the opponent, where it’s most useful for crossups and mixups. Sure, I could jump or use Sammamish, but those are easily punishable, whereas the new CotS isn’t (since it can “phase through” most attacks).
Granted, my current view of the new iteration of CotS could just be from my lack of knowledge on how to use it properly… So, keeping that in mind, I have 1 simple question - like with how Aganos can only really chunk up during certain times, what are the best times/scenarios for Thunder to “light up” without being punished? The ONLY time I can personally think of is with shadow CotE, but that requires a full stock of shadow meter AND a successful hit with the attack (and this does nothing for helping to “get in” in the 1st place, since you generally have to be “in” to hit with shadow CotE to begin with). I will experiment myself in practice mode to see what I can figure out on my own. If nobody responds in a timely manner, I’ll share what I find here. 
Well, in general, the best times you can often, like you said, Shadow Call of the Earth, and his sammamish ender. Those are pretty much his two safest moments in his gameplan to “light up,” but there are other opportunities depending on match-up and player preferences.
I will admit though, for a buff, it has a long animation time, where even Shadow Jago doesn’t have that long an animation to do his 1 meter buff during his dark shackles, and it grants what could be a far more precious resource than a simple buffed dash.
I will also say this, I haven’t played Thunder much since Cinder came out, and now with Shadow Jago, I’m liking him too. I played Thunder exclusively for a LONG time, and then once Cinder came out, I was just having too good a time with a new character that seemed to fill the void in the gameplan Thunder was missing out on (the drastic difference in mobility!). So I haven’t practiced up all the best moments as to when you should “light up”, but I do remember getting mileage on the buffed version more than the projectile version.
I do know if you can catch them with skyfall, it causes a good knockdown too, so I would test that. The damage ender can give you enough time to cast for the buff and acquire it, but the recovery period on the move is too long and you can get hit on the recovery. Basically, you acquire the buff at around frame 8 of the animation, but that’s like frame 8 out of around 60 (could use verification on that though). Getting the buff isn’t the hard part, its living past the recovery to use the buff, and I believe if IG can shorten the animation somewhat, since it’s not a true attack, it will gain a lot more usefulness that it does now. Even 40 to 35 frames would give it a LOT more utility. How fast can Aganos “chunk up” with his manual chunk up move (not the resource ender)? I know when he has no chunks or 1, it’s decent, but at 3 or more, the animation really slows down.
I also had one idea for Thunder, where basically any attack under the buffed state of Call of Sky, if it hits (not on block) should cause stagger, or maybe have some extended range or move forward capacity.
Jago, Glacius, Spinal, Fulgore, and Orchid could all shoot a fireball and recover in time to block or dodge the lightning, but their fireball could hit Thunder before he recovered from Call of Sky. The only reason you were hitting people is because they were low level players that didn’t know what to do against it.
Thanks for you input! I experimented for about 30 minutes or so, and I found out that an awful lot is actually unsafe. If someone could provide the frame data to backup how safe or certain opportunities, like the ones listed below, actually are, I’d appreciate it:
- shadow CotE = absolutely safe
- forward throw = questionable
- damage ender = not safe
- battery ender = not safe
- carry ender = potentially safe, but not really
- juggle ender = not safe
- Skyfall = not safe
I tested the above by having the AI in practice mode simply do a quick-rise, if possible, and watching the animation of its recovery. It really doesn’t look like a lot of options does it?
What about his sammamish ender? Should be safe.
And as far as testing, I wouldn’t stop at a quick rise, I would say, use quick rise + fast reversal. If Thunder can block the reversal, Then it should be safe. Like Jago, quick rise + Tiger Fury. If Thunder can block Tiger Fury, he’s safe. If not, then that option is unsafe.
Ultimately, the move is never really safe as long as the opponent has some control over their character. Another thing to consider is how your opponent is playing. If they are anticipating some kind of attack or playing a certain pattern at long distance, then a quick charge off guard can catch them by surprise. Aganos works on the same principle, a lot of people like to zone him, not believing he’s decent at a distance, and practically give Aganos breathing room to chunk up and come in. When they see him chunk up and they realize their mistake, they attack in a panic and make mistakes to try and stop him from getting two or three chunks.
Basically “lighting up” works on a similar principle too. You have safe moments to execute it, but you also can create your own openings.
I tried his juggle (Sammamish) ender and it’s not safe either; I just forgot to add it in, but I did test it along with the rest.
I saw no option for a “fast reversal” or else I would’ve used it. There was an option for a “counter hit” but when I turned it on, it didn’t seem to do anything. I’ll look again just to be sure, in case I missed it though.
As for whether the move is safe or not, I know it’s often dependent on the situation at hand (like being able to catch the opponent off-guard and pulling it off), but when you really think about it, everything is… 
…so technically, that particular point is moot (no offense). What I’m looking for is simply what’s feasible when your opponent is basically helpless, or close enough to it, and I’m not finding a lot of options.
There are some questionable ones, such as the carry ender, though - it pushes the opponent back just far enough (if the opponent doesn’t hit the wall, that is) that you might be able to light up with CotS, particularly if it’s a character that doesn’t really use projectiles or have other ranged or far-reaching attacks (which is minimal at best). They recover just before you complete the move, but some characters may not be able to close that distance in time with their attacks, which is why it’s questionable. Then again, that, like above, is a pretty specific scenario so…
In any case, thanks again for your reply. 
Just a helpful tip, if you’re trying to see if a set up or something is safe to reversals set Player 2 as the character that has the set up you’re testing and record them doing it and then blocking. Then you play as the Player 1 character and see if you can hit them or if they block it.
I will try this. Thanks! I knew you could record yourself doing stuff with the 2nd character, but I didn’t think it would work on account of the blocking - every time I try that while recording the set, they just move backwards instead (unless I try a low-block, which isn’t always what I need).
I was assuming that was how @GalacticGeek was testing the situations for them. I guess it’s something I should have mentioned, so I kinda screwed up in that regard.
But yeah, you can’t go by the quick stand up animation alone, because you’ll have the frames to quick stand up + the startup frames of whatever counterattack you intend to use to punish the Call of Sky.
Brain damaged, eh? From looking at the amazing things Iron Galaxy has done for Killer Instinct, I’d personally call them geniuses who know very well what their doing.
Besides, the old Call of Sky was pretty cool, but it allowed players to spam the hell out of it. If anything, it was even worse than endoduken spammers XD. The newer one, although not as flashy, can allow Thunder players to make some pretty nasty moves that can help them destroy their opponent.
Delete that post, so no one else sees it Moon.