I feel that in SC4 for example, there were quite many ways you could legitly play as Xianghua because her moveset gave you lots of possibilities. In SCV I have seen little variety in the ways people play Leixia. If that's the kind of game you can enjoy, that's okay with me. I, on the other hand, cannot enjoy this over a long period of time for I get bored pretty easily. It's not my kind of game.
Some of you also seem under the impression that I equal a huge moveset to strategy. I do not. This is evident at the end of my post. I do equal a huge moveset to bigger strategic POTENTIAL, though. Spot the difference:
Oh cmon, Leixia has one of the largest and most varied movelist in the game. Her weakness of low damage is made up for with her speed and number of options. In fact, losing Xianghua's precious 3A is part of the reason Leixia now requires a brain to use. Now for lows she must choose between unsafe, slow WR A+B, linear 8WR move 22K, tracking 8WR move with a string and a good cancel 11A, 2B+K quake stun low, and her standard fast, long range 2K. She also has multiple options for major groups: 5 tracking mids all with their niche (3A delayable string, 3A+B anti-JG ~FC, 1A ranged TC; on CH combos to launch, 44A faster ranged TC; cancellable into advantage guard crushing mid, WR A on CH combos to CE, 66K fast mid-range mid tracks one direction) ranged 3 different stepping moves, stepping and backstepping moves and that cover themselves (44B+K and 22B+K are underrated), and a bunch of other stuff that isn't all that great but you like that, right?
You've probably seen little variety because X players are used to 5 move X but they got a complex character that has to rely on complexity and matchup adaptability to win, and less standard mixup and whiff punishing. She's a character that actually benefits from your wishes to have large move vocabulary, and you weren't happy with her? I'm guessing you weren't able to implement a complex style with Leixia effectively, it's hard but if you choose the best moves for each specific situation, she should be good in theory.
Basically the theory is: each move has varying effectiveness based on how the situation varies by spacing, frame advantage, and opponent behavior, but their effectiveness hits a peak somewhere where its use it optimal. Leixia's moves aren't that great, but every move is pretty good when it's used in its optimal situation. Leixia has a lot of moves that aren't trash and they are varied, so there will be a lot of situations where one or a few moves of the large move pool will actually be really good instead of just average. In this way, a lot of average moves each with their situational strengths and weaknesses can be strong.
That takes a lot of skill to do, though. For this reason, I am in support of long, meaningful movelists that don't have completely redundant moves, as they allow for a higher skill ceiling and a greater number of viable options, which is depth, by any definition. It would make for an even more strategic game if everyone had to do this. It would seem, according to SCII vets, however, that SCII movelists had so many trash moves and movelists are so refined in SCV that you actually have more viable options with SCV movelists than you do in SCII movelists.
