My first post quoting your question about what could be nerfed on Christie gave you a general direction on where to start. I'm not going to write an essay containing more details until I'm sure the person I'm talking to shows some insight and interest in my opinion. I can spend my time on more enjoyable things instead, knowing it's not wasted like it happened quite often in the past when teaching newcomers who turned out to be DOA day flies.
Unfortunately, you seem to be uninterested too since you rather prefer to use the "learn the matchup" phrase as discussion stopper, lumping things - as I wrote in my previous post - together really quickly.
And right, you did not say anything about Winter Brawl. I did though. Sorry if that wasn't clear.
But fine, do as you like. Though it would not be amiss if I explain one of the points I stated a bit more for everyone else anyway, now that I'm already writing this post.
So, referring to this
I'd like to point out first that this is not even something "match up" related. It aims to balance out Christies own risk / reward factor for a move she can use against every character of choice once she landed a stun. Landing a stun as Christie is something that will happen sooner or later in every fight, regardless who the opponent is and what kind of moveset he offers.
Therefore no, I do not need to "study" any match-up or take a look at what kind of tools I have because a stun situation is the same for every character in the game, containing the same defensive options: slow escaping, holding, doing nothing or mashing an attack button.
In particular, I'm talking about Christies 214P. While it executes in 32 frames which is pretty slow, it is still an exorbitant good comeback move for a character like her because of the following things:
- It is a mid punch, therefore not crushable or avoidable by low holds
- It causes a sitdown stun, a normal one on an opponent that is isn't stunned (+25, no SE) and a 'deeper' one on someone who is in stun status (+ 42 no SE)
- Only fastest slow escape can prevent her from launching immediately after it. However, she can also (guaranteed) extend the stun with e.g. 6P, resulting in still being at 20 advantage
- The 'deep' sit down stun guarantees a critical burst if 214P reaches stun level three
- It is only -7 on block
- The animation itself makes her stepping backwards, meaning she will evade and outbeat retaliation attempts that are done with counterpoke tools which are usually fast but do not reach a higher distance than ~1.60m.
Since Christie has speed advantage in terms of mids and highs in most match ups, low jabs are propably the best way for other characters to get her off. However, these won't reach her on given move because she can land it from up to 2 meter.
Players who face Christe have to do frequent guessing for not getting hit by one of her string variations. Holding in stun is not always an option due to her having reset throws, however, always holding mid punch if doing so isn't as well. If the Christie player notices he's getting held mid punch too much, he can easily switch to other moves without suffering speed.
214P is at least a linear move, but sidestepping is not an option in stun and it does not promise much success on a string heavy striker who's got many different string enders and opportunities to delay some, making them retracking.
Slow escaping stuns also barely works on Christie. Her 9 frame jab reaches 1.34m, her 11 frame mid punch (6P) 1.76m, her 14 frame mid kick (H+K) 1.80m. She can launch with moves that require about 15 or 16 frames execution. This is more than enough speed and range to extend a stun quickly and to get a juggle done on people, even if they slow escape. Just as comparison, Kasumi's jab reaches 1.18m, her 6P 1.37m, her 3K 1.68m.
Even if the opponent slow escapes 214P, there will not happen much to the Christie player due to it having such a minor disadvantage on block. She can either keep hitting buttons and might be able to land the next hi-counter stun immediately, or she won't take much damage from throws that are able to punish that move properly.
Considering these things and that 214P allows her to deal almost guaranteed damage starting from 90 up to 130 of a single correct guess (using a mid punch or not) after landing a counter-hit stun even on super-heavyweights while she does not need to pay any attention on the environment or stances, at least the removal of the guaranteed critical burst option should be justifiable. Or an significant increase of disadvantage on block.
With that move, Christie players are able to skip both the need of guessing on a crucial hold as well as the requirement of being aware of environmental circumstances and the consequences on doing the wrong thing. It is a typical low risk, high reward move that is (in my opinion) misplaced on this character when seeing the whole extend of her toolset.
People are welcome to enlighten me if things aren't like I described. I am around in this forum to extend and offer my knowledge, wiping out mistakes and broaden my horizont by hearing other player's opinions in discussions, not for listening to accusations about not having studied enough lonely behind closed doors.