Can't motivate myself to play much anymore. I'm not sure if I should try to force it or not.
I've been thinking about Hitomi in terms of placement on the overall tier listing. Honestly, I don't think she's really that bad. She's got great tracking moves, stellar punishers like 46P and a great sidestep attack in 22K. Her overall damage isn't bad either and she has multiple launchers. Her overall offense and approach is pretty good, and she's probably one of the best characters to free cancel with.
Her defense isn't really shabby either. Her punch parry is excellent and she's relatively fast enough to deal with pressure on top of it. She doesn't have the best 6P, but her lows are good... decent enough at least. She doesn't really have any really strong crushes, but given what she does have in breaking pressure, I'm not so sure she really needs too many.
She's string dependent, yeah, but there's good variety there. Heck, she's probably got one of the better high mid low mix ups of the cast. And it doesn't seem like she really suffers from any bad match ups. And it almost seems like she doesn't really have to play the stun game if she doesn't want to, thanks to a variety of quick launchers on CH or simple stuns.
Yet despite all that, nothing really truly stands out. In essence, Hitomi feels like the epitome of averageness. Nothing stands out, nothing is really terrible either. She's... average. I would guess that would make her a straight mid-tier character. I can't think of too many advantages she could get on lower tiered characters or even on higher tiered characters - save for maybe her punch parry doing a number on Akira and Pai; although I don't think Akira really is high tier.
She's definitely character to pick if you've got no one else to try. She's beginner friendly and feels moreso than Kasumi or Ayane do because she has no real gimmicks. That's probably why she feels fairly plain and maybe even a little weak on appearance. She's probably underrated and I don't think she has it rough against some characters like Lei-Fang and Christie. But I don't think she has any real advantages to put her over some of the mid to lower tiered cast. I should probably play her some more and see what kind of trouble she really has, but even trying to randomly hold against isn't easy compared to some characters like Rig or Kokoro.
As for Rig, I think some players also underestimate just how good his BK pressure game is. KK, 4K, 2KK are all amazing for linear pressure. And if the opponent even thinks that stepping is going to stop it, Rig's got two answers for that. His combo potential is good, his 8K is really amazing and he even has some decent guard breaks. His 6P isn't bad either, especially on counter hit. Probably up there with Lei-Fang's, Kasumi's, and Jann Lee's... well maybe not Jann Lee's.
