Oh I know, I was exaggerating a bit on both ends. Still, I find a lot of the buffs to be pretty interesting all things considered, and rather than give Paul entirely new options instead make his current playstyle more dangerous and give him a few more ways to play into it.
Paul is a character who capitalizes on reading the opponent correctly and capitalizing on their misplays. Part of this is his great Oki game, which also leads to stored CH setups, and Paul loves his counterhits, even moreso now.
-Fst.HP looks like it has great potential now. It is now a frame faster than Ken’s current st.HK which performed the same function but was actually usable. Confused by hitstun reduction, as guide says it was always +3 on hit (yet another typo from it?).
-Fdash is good all-around: keeping up pressure, allowing for more ambiguous cross rolls, and taking 6 frames off stored counterhit setups. For instance, blockstringxxEXCADC Hammer of the Gods/Bone Breaker (very similar to a successful tactic Ryan Hunter uses with Steve, though it gains a low option and Hammer is 2 frames faster (need to find my guide to see difference between Paul and Steve’s forward dash).
-LP Sway looks to be good for baiting, specifically during oki, and then cancelling into the appropriate Shredder to crush what they attempted. M and H changed a bit to be more valuable as punishes, but I do not see them getting much use anyway.
-I hope Morta’s change means it is Midair on frame 1-2 rather than 9. If that is the case, then it is less about a blockstring overhead/safe ender/projectile passer as it is a low crusher. Sure they might have all day to aair it but if you used it to punish a careless low poke or move, you get 130 and a Hard Knockdown to go Oki.
-2nd hit of bone breaker being made slightly safer helps his primary mixup a tiny bit, and I do not see the ability to super cancel Demoman as helping at all unless you can hit it midscreen (see later question), since c.mkxxSmash remains a good followup there for no bars.
And then there’s the huge yet situational Smasher buff, which I feel is meant to make it feel a) more like his signature move and b) like in Tekken use it to punish errythang. Throwing the move out of nowhere still seems pretty silly unless they are making some bad mistakes, but HP does have far reach and I’ll let the more experienced judge it’s use raw. Then there are its use on counterhits, and can it possibly be used as a meaty in oki? Most importantly, theories. If they press buttons during my previously mentioned EXCADC into High/Low mixup then they are eating 200 damage into wallbounce. Less likely, perhaps one can do Smasher during Oki late on purpose, looking like a CH store but if they press buttons BOOM 230.
So I think they made Paul a bit more interesting by giving him a bit more high risk/high reward options which have the potential to be lower risk when predicting/outplaying your opponent. I cannot wait to see what awaits his oki game with the faster fst.HP, Sway cancels, and faster CH dash.
And 3 questions I have. So what’s Ground Blowback, ie what the second hit of Demolition Man does on counterhit now? Sounds like a bad thing, but I hope it somehow allows us to follow it up (ie if it is slip, then the third hit would connect outside the corner thus adding more power to his primary mixup). Then, it says Paul’s jab had its hitbox both enlarged and reduced, typo? Either it was changed horiz and vert, or one is meant to say hurtbox, and if wishful thinking is true (bigger hit, smaller hurt), it might look a lot like Bob’s current jab which is a tool of his I use often. Finally what is the SE/Ryu’s SRK mean about EXSmasher?
