To me, “rebalance” implies more than just “how do we keep the characters balanced.” Maybe that’s the literal use of the term, but to me, I think that it could (or should) imply a few things:
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Is this character competitive enough? What can be done to buff or nerf them in to line with the rest of the cast?
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Is there anything that can be improved upon with this character without hurting the game’s balance?
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Is there anything from a cosmetic standpoint that could be done to make this character more enjoyable without changing what their move sets currently accomplish?
There it is… The Killer Instinct character hierarchy of needs. 1 is the base level: Does this character need legit work done? 2 is more helping characters be what they are or be what they should be to a better degree and 3, the top item (but most superfluous) would be cosmetic changes.
To me, every character falls somewhere on the hierarchy because every character in every fighting game could be improved upon somehow, in some small way. Never stop getting better if you can help it.
The good news, to me at least, is that there are very few characters at the base, most essential level (1).
Level 1: I think that these characters could use a little work to improve a bit.
-Omen: This is the big one for me. IG knows how a good number of fans feel when it comes to Omen. I’d say this… Take out every obviously reused animation from Jago or Sabrewulf and give him new, unique moves and animations. So no Orda Shield. Replace it with a move that has him pulling one wing up, over his head as he’s spinning, so the wing extends up, out and over him the way his old move did with the fireball.
Remove the random fireballs and give him his own, unique, non-Shadow Jago-looking fireball. Also get rid of the slide. Give him something new there, like maybe a sort of lunging winged corkscrew, arms outstretched. Also allow him to do that while air dashing.
When it comes to his look, I’d say get rid of his masks. Give him armor so he looks more like a warrior. Let his wings be out all the time or draped on his shoulders like a cape ala Gargoyles. Give him some height, weight and power behind him as opposed to him being uber-slender. He should be more imposing. Maybe give him forward arching demon horns. I’d say imprint a face and physical features on him like black eyes and a mouth hole, but defined facial features as well. He should almost look like a demonic, photo-negative version of Jago. Maybe give him Jago’s hair, but black, twinged with a glowing blue outline.
-TJ Combo: Is he weak? No. But in my humble opinion, his autobarrage needs to be changed or dropped entirely. It’s become this sort of isolated thing away from how he normally does combos, so is it really even a general combo trait at this point? I’d just say drop it, drop his autobarrage ender, and give him a new combo trait that actually works within his movelist instead of outside of it.
Perhaps something like “juke autos” where pressing light, medium, heavy in succession causes a delay in the hits as he does a juke move before the medium auto and before the heavy auto, faking like he’s about to throw a punch with one hand before punching with the other, throwing off your opponents timing for when to break. After three hits though, you’d have to follow up with a linker to continue the combo.
Cinder: Maybe I’m in the minority here, but I’m not a fan of the eight second “fired up” trait. It feels too random. I like being able to use what a character has, not what they’ll have in eight seconds. I think that Cinder could actually stand to be simplified a bit. Take away “fired up” entirely. Always have the fire piller on fire flash, but get rid of all other fired up benefits on other special moves.
I would also ask that trailblazer remove the option for “hold a direction and hit kick” to trigger the next direction you go. It should be a double tap in that direction. It’s not much of a change in input, but it would remove the accidental “charge in on opponent and then charge out” aspect and remove a little of the precision needed to use Cinder. Given all the changes, I’d give him a slight damage buff so that he doesn’t have to work quite so hard to do what some other characters can do in a few moves.
-Aganos: Awesome character, awesome concept, and he certainly has some great tools. But while any character in this game can be a big time threat, he seems closer to the bottom than most. I feel like he could use a slight boost to his damage in certain areas and I also think that he needs to move a bit better, especially when he’s chunked.
Not saying Aganos at level 4 should move like Aganos without chunks at all, but maybe have Aganos with 2 chunks currently be as slow as he moves?
Those are by far the biggest things I’d change. Some might hate those, some might think there’s too much buffing / nerfing / changing. I just think that these characters would be better for this and if you disagree, that’s cool.
Level 2: Not nearly the bandaid rip that Level 1 is. Just some stuff to help make good characters a little better in terms of what they’re trying to do.
Orchid: I’d also like to see her get a tonfa uppercut like the one from classic KI. Perhaps allow her to charge the final hit of MP ichi ni san and have it start low on the opponent so they have to block low. This would give her a high low charge mixup that could panic some players. Short startup because it takes a while to charge, but this could launch the opponent in to the air providing another danger zone throw recapture opportunity.
It also wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if they upped the damage a little on her smoke bomb.
Level 3 Orchid: She should twirl her tonfas in her hands during ichi ni san. Kinda like Omega Red’s ropes.
Glacius: His instinct is among the worst in the game. I’d like to see him get the use of ranged manuals as well as a fairly good, quick back dash during instinct. Do that and maybe add a slight armor upgrade to his current instinct armor and that’d make for a solid, though likely not top tier instinct.
Level 3 Glacius: I’d like to see his hands change shape more. His ice lance should be a tad longer, but also more defined looking. Perhaps his wall splat ender could conclude with a cold shoulder immediately followed by him smacking the opponent with two good sized double sided axe shaped ice fists and his hands explode in icy particles with how hard he hits them off of the opponent.
Sadira: She’s the “air” character, yet it seems like there are others that have as many, or more options as Sadira in the air. I’d like to see them give her a command move that’s only available when she launches someone. So if she uses a light breakable auto plus, let’s say down/forward K, she does an air throw.
Medium breakable auto plus down/forward K could be a quick, unblockable string of three spinning kicks followed by a fourth back flip kick that pushes the opponent to the ground for a hard knockdown and heavy breakable auto plus down/forward kick could be flipkicking the opponent to the ground with webs attached to them, and Sadira pulls herself down for recapture. Her KV meter would be full though, so she’d immediately have to do an ender, and launcher ender wouldn’t allow her to take to the air in time to follow up.
Thunder: Still not loving Call of the Sky. Would like to see it replaced with something that pushes the opponent toward you from behind, like a mass of his crows. It’d have a long start up, but even if it’s blocked, Thunder could still make his way a little closer to his opponent.
I also think that his Sky Fall off of samamish shouldn’t be his only air option. He should have an air throw off of samamish. It should do slightly less damage than sky fall and he throws the opponent across the arena, but it’s unbreakable. He’s the grappler of the game. He should have more throwing options. This gives him something small and contextual without giving him anything too horribly damaging.
Hisako: Would it be the worst thing in the world if her air ORZ was a little easier to catch opponents in the air with? I get it, if an opponent jumps at me and I have the reaction time to jump and hit a midair ORZ, we’re back to the ground for some recapture goodness.
But I feel like there are a few situations where midair ORZ should hit an opponent and knock them to the ground for recapture, but without instinct activated, it simply doesn’t connect. Given how limited her options are with initiating combos on the ground, it’d be nice to have this tool a bit more readily available for use in mid air so that when I smack an opponent up in the air with… Ah… I want to say down MP(?) launches, that I can follow that up with a midair ORZ and bring the combo right back to the ground. Would that make her too OP? Maybe midair ORZ fills the KV meter a bit faster in this situation to compensate?
Either way, it’s a cool move that I feel like I hardly get the chance to take advantage of, so it’d be nice to have a few more contexts within which to utilize it that don’t rely on my reacting to my opponent jumping at me.
ARIA: She has two unique moves in two of her forms, (hover and crescendo in booster and blade slice/allegro in blade form) but only one (or variations on one) in her bass form. I know that her bass form is strong. But would it be too much to add a projectile to her throw that does a slightly more damage in this form than in her other forms? Doesn’t have to be three hits like her normal projectile, but just a small difference to give her a little added oomph when in the form that doesn’t want people in on her to begin with.
Level 3: Characters that don’t NEED anything, but could stand to have some added cosmetic enhancements. Bear in mind, these are all moves to add to or replace what’s already there without changing any damage or what anything actually does.
Spinal: I think that his boneshaker ender is a tad dull. He just sort of ends it with a shield hit. Instead of lunging forward with his shield, I’d rather he stands in place, quickly slices his sword along his shield, which lets out that sort of deep kraken shriek (like from his victory pose), the shield glows red and lets out five quick bursts of small, red skulls shaped in a ring that get slightly larger as they reach the opponent like what his classic searing skull used to look like.
Jago: Give him different animations for his DP ender. Have the light one be his double roundhouse followed by a small uppercut. His medium be a quick jump kick to mid air glowing laser sword uppercut and the fierce one be his regular uppercut, but have his hand and forearm be on fire, the same color as his endokuken, a small blast of sparks careening off of the opponent when they get hit (yes, I’m aware that’s VERY similar to Ken’s fierce DP but well, so is Jago’s regular DP without the fire).
Sabrewulf: Replace his eclipse with his backward flip kick. Keep the glowing green trail. Give him green electrical charges on all of his enders that strike from Sabrewulf to his opponent when his instinct is active.
Give him his sabre roll and have it hit low out of run instead of hamstring (still have it go through) and put a small glowing green spiral animation (and have him spiral through the air instead of just leap) on jumping slash.
Riptor: I like her MK attack in predator stance a lot, but for a stance… I feel like there should be a special throw for it. Maybe replace her HK sweep with her wrapping her tail around the opponents legs, opponent falls over and Riptor flips the opponent over her to the other side of her, which cause the opponent to bounce or wall splat for a quick punish. It could be blocked low if opponent sees it coming and leaves her somewhat unsafe on block, but not horribly easy to punish either if she whiffs. If she does whiff though, she’s out of predator stance.
Kan Ra: I’d just make his sand traps and his scarabs slightly smaller. I feel like he’s able to take up too much of the screen at one time. I guess you could call this a nerf, but I don’t think it’d have a massive difference on how people play him or how good he is. It might be a stretch to call this a cosmetic change, but I can’t imagine it affecting him to any huge degree.
Another small thing… I think he has two scorpion tails and his antlion if I’m not mistaken. Maybe instead of one of the scorpion tails, he brings up a sand version of him, breathing blue air on the opponent which has the same effect. I know, VERY cosmetic, but mummies create sand versions of themselves. It’s what they do. I saw it in The Mummy lol.
Fulgore: There’s not a lot to dislike about this character, but I must say… Not a huge fan of his throw. It kinda just looks like you’re stuck in his taunt. Maybe instead of just lifting the opponent up with the claw part, and tossing them he lifts the opponent up with one hand, shoots two quick eye lasers in to you at close range, then holds his other hand up, which glows for a moment as the claw part spins briefly, then he punches you with it and follows through hard, blue particles flying as the opponent goes… Flying.
That’s all I’ve got for the moment. I’d put Maya in there, but while I think she needs something, I can’t for the life of me think what that might be. I feel like her dagger mechanic could be more accessible, more easy to use without feeling like you’re trying to juggle them. Also not a fan of the dagger pips.
I don’t know how to change any of that though without completely ruining what she does for those that like her. For me, it’s a bit of a wall between me and getting in to this character more, but ya can’t like em all, I guess. Nothing wrong with that. 
I think that there are a few characters that can be improved upon in general, a few more characters that could use some slight enhancements to what they already do, or few minor alterations, but most of them could simply use some cosmetic upgrades to existing moves without changing what they actually do.
LONGEST POST EVER lol. Sorry! 
