I’ll go with Kim-Wu…
-Reward: B Kim-Wu is all about cashout in my opinion. Not just for damage, which is where she excels. But also, now, for meter and instinct. The recent patch changed her lvl 2 or higher Firecracker ender to gain both a dragon and a bit of meter. Obviously, damage is good. Gaining more meter for more shadow moves and shadow counters, when she previously didn’t have that ability, is also tempting. But because damage is still her go to cashout, it streamlines her in a bad way.
-Neutral: A Kim-Wu is not really easy in any stretch to walk up to. Good ranged heavies, a pretty good medium for poking and anti-airing. She has some versatility in the way she can open a character up to combos, and almost every normal is cancellable to an opener. Pestering an opponent with multiple st. MP, cancelled into dragon sweep is nice. Walk speed and dashing are very good. Firecracker is a pretty good anti-zoning tool for projectile characters.
-Offense: B Her offense can be linear. Unlike any ofher character (i believe), she does not have a means to move an opponent in combo state significantly. Or she moves them a very small bit. This makes her wall splat ender situational; you cannot force your opponent into a corner. Breaking an opponent’s defense is work, and what you usually will spend your dragons on. Her high/low game is probably just below average…
-Defense: C+ With no reversal in her arsenal, her only options really are to guard, backdash, jump or risk a parry attempt. All of her meter options, especially on wakeup, can be countered or seem to have enough of a gap in frames that an opponent can simply block. Her parry, as it is now, can be used as a tool to immediately ‘end the opponent’s turn.’ But that requires a hard read, one dragon prior to using the parry, and to actually hit it. Shadow counters still feel like a true gamble since the Firecracker will still sometimes miss the opponent and leave Kim-Wu down a bar of meter and at the mercy of the opponent.
-Breakability: B- Every character seems to have a auto-double or linker that is easier than others to react to and break. The medium punch auto-double seems to be hers, probably because medium punch itself is a go-to button for her and is easily distinguishable. Her breakability, for me, increases because of the exchange linker, which can get teched mid-combo. It can also get teched if you’re using it to start a combo and in some ways, a return to neutral does less for Kim-Wu than for most other fighers.
-Instinct: B+ to A- Remember - Whiff punisher. Just popping instinct midway into an opponent’s move allows her to react in damaging (Shadow Dragon Kick) or opportunistic (Parry into combo) ways perhaps more so than others. But off the strength of her instinct alone, not so much. Dragon cannon has never felt like a good use of a dragon, outside of baiting a lockout mid combo. I will say that when she is in instinct, her offense probably goes up to an A, her versatility becomes a little less strict, and her neutral maybe goes to A+.
-Versatility: Very Specialized Kim-Wu lacks attributes to moves other characters enjoy. No recapture, flipout or armored moves are available and stagger only becomes available while in instinct and utilizing dragons. Without these four attributes, her ability to adapt to an opponent outside of her gameplan of playing footsies is limited. So limited that it becomes a noticeable and inescapable crutch.
-Comeback factor: A- You do not want to be on the receiving end of most of her combos. One lockout can cost an opponent a significant portion of their life. She is almost never really out of a match because of that. More than anything honestly? An opponent that lets off their gameplan because ‘the match is done’ and walks into hers pays dearly for it.
-Overall: B- Kim-Wu doesn’t have the attributes that other characters have access to or does not have a trait that is either a game changer or a momentum robber (outside of parry, which carries significant risk) without instinct. So without it, she wants you as a opponent to play her game. Hit buttons she can punish you for. Jump into dragon kicks. Do all those sort of things. But she doesn’t have many tools to provoke that. That’s more on the player and the style they establish more than the character’s moveset.
