I can't help myself. I'm just so much more comfortable working with characters I'm familiar with, even if the combos have changed. I did mess around with Takeda briefly, but he's a bit of an odd duck with extremely long-range but unsafe normals and most of his combo extensions coming from enhanced specials. It was simply too daunting so I played it safe and focused on Mystic Ermac.

The good news (bad news?) is that Ermac doesn't just poop out stupid amounts of easy damage off of any touch any more. His combos are generally more difficult/involved and actually hover just below 30% damage with one key exception: any combo that lets you save Tele-Hold until the end. Unlike in MK9, the non-enhanced version of the move does no damage but puts the opponent into a hover state. The first instinct would be to use this move to add additional hits to the combo like a Spear or Ice Ball, but if you don't do that and simply wait instead, once the move wears off the opponent falls to the floor and takes 10% unscaled damage. With scaling as severe as it is in this game, there's no feasible set of extra attacks you could do that would match the damage. As an added bonus, leaving the opponent sitting there gives you time to annoy them by throwing off some instant-air Soul Bursts. You maximize your combo, generate extra meter, and do mental damage! It's a win-win-win!

So I've seen people using abbreviations to refer to character variations like MoS Ermac for Master of Souls. One of his other variations is called Spectral Ermac. I wonder how you'd abbreviate that...? (apparently I am 12-years old)