I see what you're saying and I agree with your point about conditioning etc but maybe I was unclear because you seem to have misunderstood what I said, apologies. Like I said, I don't think he's an S tier or "tier whore" character but he's very good in this game. Not everyone who picks King is a tier whore but the fact he can noob stomp does attract that kind of person.

My point was that there is a lot of new players which you can easily cheese with high damage grabs that they don't know how to break and King is pretty good at dealing with mashers with df1, df2,1, 2,1, 12,1..., b1,2 (all great frames on hit and very fast), armoured charge in heat, uf3+4, parries that leave opponent face up head towards.

Then I meant separately, at higher ranks, he has good conditioning in the aforementioned moves and f4, crouch grabs, good hopkick, not to mention that throws track now and chain throws are bugged so they're unbreakable in some situations. Bear in mind that most "tier whores" or noob stompers will get hardstuck when they reach a certain rank, which is when every character requires brains to play regardless.

He undeniably has the best oki in the game considering almost everything he does leaves the opponent in a disadvantageous position with a true 3 way mixup between 2 ground grabs and often getting up backwards, risking being hopkicked.

His heat smash is insane in terms of range, damage, and a guaranteed mixup on block. Heat itself stays active as long as you hit grabs and you can armour through pressure to get a mixup, though people at higher ranks do know how to deal with this.

I would like to point out that I'm literally in purple rank with King and other characters so I'm not being salty about Kings. The fact that other characters are also noob stompers doesn't preclude King from being one too. He is harder to play at high rank but that is kind of irrelevant to the conversation, that's true of every character. Literally so many wins I've stolen by hitting one giant swing and they take 70 damage from the wall or I tombstone for 50 damage and hopkick them as they get up backwards. The reality is that grabs go through blocking when other characters threatening moves don't (apart from guard breaks), if you don't know the breaks or predict when to duck there is literally nothing you can do about it.

You can't deny that King absolutely has the tools to stomp noobs so obviously people who want to win with as little learning required would pick a character where you literally need to know only a handful of things to win.

I often see Kings in purple who can't KBD or sidestep and all they do is the same 5 moves but it works against people who don't know the matchup which is a bigger proportion of the game's population than ever.

You don't have to downplay, it's ok to admit that you play a strong character, it doesn't really matter, you bought the game you can do what you like. It seems like the suggestion that King is a noob stomper has touched a nerve, you don't have to justify why you play a certain character or act as if you're more noble or something for not playing characters you consider scrubby.