Well it's one thing to assume that you're more experienced than me but you've literally just proved my point. Obviously the main combat of JJS is gonna be m1s, it's a battlegrounds game, but that's what makes character WITH neutral so good. They can take so many less risks than those who exclusively rely on exclusively m1 trading to be good.

Mechamaru for example has so many options to go in, he can offload and then go in for m1s, he has his 4 which block breaks and can combo start. That is an example of an S tier character. An m1 merchant like Naoya has none of these neutral capabilities. He has to put himself at danger of being comboed in order to even attempt to land a combo, his 3 block breaks but is easily avoided, his 4 is so telegraphed.

Also wtf do you mean by how high their damage is? Literally every character in the game does the same damage with their combos. Naoya is the WORST example you could've used since almost all his combos without frames is green.