You're missing the point of what I and others have been pointing out for weeks/months now, lol. DOA is the only game where the defender's defense attack option is one of the most powerful in the game.
WUKs stun on counter hit and have ridiculous range. Most back off because we know how ridiculous the WUK in DOA is. Yes, there are several ways to deal with/avoid them, but "this game's" pace has been slowed down a lot because the defender has invincibility frames when they are knocked onto the ground.
The ground game is more than often reset to neutral because those frames hardly allow you to keep up momentum well enough (outside of trying to hold a WUK, block one or back away).
Dev made a good point in the force tech thread before;
I gave my say in another thread before and people would agree;
Of course, the defender would have their few options to avoid being at more disadvantage. But in no way should your WUK have as much power as they do. They need to be weaker, a lot weaker and have shorter range. It should allow you to get up with some breathing room at the very least, not force the aggressor to back off entirely.
I honestly don't think the range is an issue. Wake up kicks, at least from what I've seen do NOT guarantee anything on standard hit. On block, -6. On whiff, they're negative -8. It's not like they can do much anyway as for the most part, whiff or block they're at a disadvantage. Just not to a overkill punishable point which is what I'm gathering you're after? which hardly seems fair.
Both cases, force the person who is wake up kicking to block afterwards. Anyone who feels they're at an advantage after a wake up kick is blocked or whiffed, is clearly mistaken. Regardless, most people will still tech roll. It's not like wake up kicking is worth the risk anyway in my eyes, besides once a blue moon when the opponent is getting ahead of themselves assuming you're going to tech roll.
Some characters still have moves which scare people into tech rolling, Rachel's stomp is still a viable scare tactic, who wants to be a -15? Nobody. Kasumi's got her cartwheel, Helena's got her BOK sweep kick, Pai's got her P+K, I could go on.
And I'm sorry but if you're getting hit by a wake up kick on CH, you deserve the damage coming to you. On standard hit, it just puts you at -6, which guarantees nothing. On whiff or block, it puts the opponent in negative frame. It's not like there's more positives than negatives to wake up kicking, so I honestly don't see the problem.
HOWEVER! I do think, they need to fix that frame where the player becomes invulnerable and you go through them. It messes with some moves making them completely useless ( Kasumi's 6PK2K. Used to be a viable combo option, now it's pretty darn useless. )
Anyway, like I said before there's a reason why they did it, and it was to prevent the ability to endlessly attack- which in all honesty was completely stupid in vanilla. They got rid of it, and now there's a problem with the inability to endlessly attack, but this isn't a 2D fighter- there shouldn't be an option to. At least this way, it gives downed players an opportunity to gain the upper hand if they guess correctly. This goes for both sides.
I guess everyone's opinion will differ on this though. Because everyone wants the game to play differently.
