ALL target combos don’t follow the 3-hit rule EXCEPT for Aganos. Probably because they wanted forward + HK to be breakable (and why should it be, when it blows out in about 5 hits anyway?), they probably accidentally tagged the peacemaker combo with it too.
It sounds exciting, but I think it would be pretty cheap. Imagine if Jago had an attack that looked like his overhead, but hit low instead. The only characters who have high-low mixups like that (that I can think of) are Maya and Mira. Mira’s allowed to break the rules of cheapness and Maya’s mixup has a fairly significant difference in startup. I’d really like for it to be a low instead, but that would immediately push Aganos’ mixups from worst in the game to top tier. To compensate, you’d have to slow it down so much that it would become even more useless in neutral. Rather than adding mixup potential, I just wish it did what it seems like it should do in neutral, which is to help close distance, but its speed and range just don’t allow it to do so effectively.
Nowadays, I just don’t want to play the midrange game against most characters. My best normal for that is st.MP, which has 12+ frames of startup and doesn’t combo into anything without spending meter. Meanwhile, my opponent has 8-10 frame heavy buttons with similar range that will take them into a full combo… and because my opponent actually has a useful forward dash, it feels like the midrange game has a one-way door that only they can pass through. Because of this, I very often resort to doing instant overheads, which at least close the distance for me (even if it’s throw punishable) and get me corner carry on hit.
I think it might be useful in neutral if it was low-crush and special cancelable on whiff, with small quality of life changes to its speed/range. Then it would serve to counter opponents like Sabrewulf and Hisako who so easily get past the fear of st.HP with their low profile and sweep repeatedly. Aganos’ only answer to that is the pseudo-low-crush property on his sweep, but given how terrible his movement is, he really doesn’t get anything off of the hard knockdown.