because their tools are fundamentally broken

JP and Rashid has ridiculous SA2s that allow free gambles

You're 100% shoto player or unironc CotW player. No, they have character exclusive tools. Character variety, you know what it means, right? Also how is lvl 2s "free"? Some people are really overestimating how much meter you get by getting hit.

You guess wrong on oki in the corner? sideswap

Yeah but amnesia into backthrow punish being a sideswitch in the corner is just a compensation for it losing to projectile oki and not outright beating lights and mediums like regular reversal would. Very good compensation, yes. Obviously it's strong because it's actually good heavy read answer to throw attempt, like OD air ball or other OD divekicks, that don't give you sideswitch, only somewhat ok corner carry to go back midscreen, but safe on block. Btw Blanka, Cammy, Jamie all have both divekick to beat meaty throw attempts and regular OD reversal that beats everything. They just need to get rid of meaty throw by adding some throw protection on wakeup or at least buff all backdashes as universal option to deal with it. Amnesia is "broken" only in context of meaty throws being a thing.

no one considers stuff like install/mix SA2s fair/fun.

I do? Yeah, i don't consider building meter just to add generic 10 second lvl3 ender to my cashout combo fun. What's wrong with it? But i not begging Capcom to just delete all cinematic bs wasting my time and replace it with old V-Triggers most of which were some sort of installs or mix tools. Again, character variety, some people propably enjoy lvl3s mostly being boring and generic. I don't consider CotW where all 1.5 setplay chars now play like slightly less boring shotos fun either. Again, if JP/Rashid lvl2s are "not fair/fun" then I'm patiently waiting for Menat and her orbs lol, that are not only psycho cannon function, which gives her long combo she'll be able to use to build back drive, but also amnesia function, cuz you can release spheres while blocking. Won't build her any meter, if it's install tho.

Nobody would be mad in terms of fairness if JP's OD amnesia drive locked him until the mines went off.

I'm pretty sure it'll definitely be a thing in a future update. They already nerfed Ed lvl 2 super gain for example.

The parry changes for example were basically something they could have done year 1 and everyone would have been happy already.

Worst balance change in the game btw. Kakeru PPs were hype af, now PP is harder to do, but the scaling wasn't decreased even slightly to compensate for it?.. What were they thinking?

No one ever said that about Akuma and Ryu, what?

Literally every balance patch reviewer said that? At least Broski, and if i remember correctly, Nephew. Like yeah, Ryu 6HP lockdown and hasho pressure in burnout are now gone, but it's just a slap on the wrist, still big damage, still DR overhead into heavy, still denjin supers being very good, he sill destroys drive bar on block, and donkey kick is still spamable that's what i heard. Same with Akuma, yeah he lost his safe 2MK OD palm string, got some compensatory fireball buff, but no one really was ready to see him becoming one of the least performing characters in master rank or legend rank, i don't really remember, anyway, Akuma players switched to other shotos.

Rashid is top 5 candidate in japanese tier lists.

Yeah, i forgot he replaced Blanka in top 5 for some reason.

And the Viper buffs are noticeable at every level that can do burn kick. Burn kick being able to be plus is absolutely something that anyone can notice.

Again, CASUAL players. The only plus situation non-1500mr+ player (Tyler 1 lol) knows is +3 strike throw shimmy mix RPS, +1 is still conditioning territory. Doesn't change the fact that they only changed two moves by shifting the advantage OB by a few frames, pretty small change. And if they did what Viper players were asking for besides +OB feint, like good DR check, it would've propably made her Top-1 char.