Yeah, I guess I’m asking for too much lol. Oh well, can’t blame me for trying to fool NRS. We can always dream! 
I still think that without a decent overhead Stryker will have trouble dealing with crouchers though. But it’s true your changes are more reasonable than mine. 
Actually at midscreen to about 2/3 screen if you see them in a crouch block you can safely jump because of the delay getting out if crouch block. So you can fake gunshot jump in unless you get predictable.
My list
Top (no order):
Kung Lao
Johnny Cage
Sub zero
Liu Kang
Smoke
Raiden
High Tier (no order)
Reptile
Kitana
Cyrax
Night wolf
Cyber sub
Kabal
Stryker
Mid
Everyone else
Low
Jax
Kabal and Stryker are mid for sure. Shang and Noob might be high. Jax is probably mid. Baraka is likely the only low tier. Reptile and Nightwolf are probably top.
To me Baraka is as good if not better than Jax, Quand Chi and Sheeva. And I’m not even kidding. Baraka at least has good specials to deal with his opponents (except for his crappy projectile), despite having a shit damage output.
I’m not saying that Baraka is mid. Just saying that if Baraka is low, then Jax and Sheeva have to be down there with him. I don’t know much about Quan Chi, but I know he’s not very good without his rune trap.
Also: Kano is definitely much better than Stryker all around. Don’t see why you would put Stryker high and Kano mid.
I agree with Sheeva, Jax and Quan Chi being low along with Baraka. IMO, that is the bottom tier in the game.
According to Tom Brady, Kano is A+ along with Mileena. Noob is bottom of S/top of A+.
Haven’t tried all the characters yet, but I do agree with the rank for Smoke. He’s got lots of good stuff he can do.
If any of your points truly need to happen, it’s this one.
Smoke is definitely not Top Tier.
Reasons being? Not disagreeing, just wondering.
With the exception of Cyrax, noob, and quan chi, I’d say this is pretty accurate. Meaning all of those should be higher.
He has high damage, a good teleport, and a good sweep but it’s extremely hard to actually start his combos because his other moves are so slow.
It’s not just that they are slow…what reason do I have to actually crouch block on Smoke? Sweep is the only worry…okay? Free techroll away from Smoke? I’ll take it.
I can hit you with my d3 that does 1% and can’t combo into anything!
Well don’t count on it.
Apparently if Stryker gets any buff at all he’ll become too godlike and be banned from tournaments because he’s the best zoner and best poker in the game. Heard it from Tom Brady himself.
Not sure what to think of it tbh lol. I would really like to see Stryker outzone Noob, Ermac, Reptile and Kano in a tournament if he’s that great at it.
But I’ll trust Tom on this one and go back to the lab. I certainly hope he’s right but I’m skeptical. At least Ermac and Kung Lao are getting nerfed lmao.
As a Kano player, I don’t see how Stryker can out zone me.
At 24:00
I’m sticking to him, but I don’t really feel like his zoning is as strong as he says. Or his poking. His pokes are so so slow. And his gunshot takes 26 frames to come out. 
If you’re standing, you’re susceptible to throws and uppercuts, each of which deal a fairly substantial 12% and give him good okizime opportunities, which is not something you want to give smoke. His sweep is also very fast.
Smoke has plenty of options. “Extremely difficult” to land combos is a huge exaggeration.
Also, his back+2 is NOT slow for an overhead and does plenty of damage. He also has crouching 1 which is plenty fast for stopping counter pokes, and as an anti-air you get a smoke bomb to full combo. Crouching 1 has been seen in plenty of tournament play (especially Aris), and it’s tried and true.
Smoke may or may not be top tier, hard to tell. But you guys are talking like he’s free up close. That’s not even close to true.
Man I feel Shang is only mid tier his normals are so slow nd he has i think the slowest uppercut in the game. His only low combo starter has very slow startup nd i can only get like 27% off of it. Although his projectiles are great, Shang is only really good on capitalizing on mistakes nd you have to be a really good guesser to use him effectively. Against non-attacking teleports Shang just gets shut down nd since his normals other than f3, b1, nd crouching fk he jusare slow. His Xray scales horribly in combos but has good range. EX moves are good although i wish they made EX fireball have knockdown or something so shang can use it as a get off me move.
In my opinion Shang Tsung is some where low A class/tier, No where near S class/tier, when played right. When I say played right, I mean not just relying on his Zoning. His Zoning is only there to help get in a soul steals and guaranteed unbreakable damage when you have a stock of meter. Shang main game will be the use of the soul steal and setups that follow after it. Not to mention he has a nice 50/50 off a jump in punch, he can go high, low or go for a throw, soul steal keeps his unsafe combo’s safe, and his over head is safe and can cancel into soul steal for and even safer overhead, and that Damage boost off of soul steal.
We just need more time with the man, not to mention Shang is a character with a huge learning curve, so yeah its going to seem like he’s not so good at first.