I hated it. I have no idea how or why, but when I was learning my first combo I kept going into it by accident which left me in a world of hurt and pain.
Good riddance!
What you dont know though is that pinion secretly elevated painwheel up in tiers.
Painwheel could do:
Cr.lk,cr.mk, xx pinion plus hk hairball
That was unpushblockable except in the rare case that someone pushblocked the cr.lk.
On block any other pushblock did basically nothing and guaranteed painwheel a mixup via high/low/throw/crossup.
On hit it confirmed into dash j.mp > full combo. (Easily)
So basically it was autopilot easy mode pressure... Where the only skill was getting off a cr.lk unassisted. And strong autopilot shot is usually what top tiers are made of in fighting games.
Also, doing pinion plus assist is super easy cause it was just dd + punch and kick.. So you couldnt really fuck it up.
The thing about pinion was that it was the only move that painwheel had that moved forward and also had a hitbox on it..
Those types of moves are very very good in assist games because of the ability for assists to cover either their startup or recovery.
So yeah, painwheel got one of her most broken tools taken away from her, and that still pisses me off. A character that is midtier if not worse got nerfed... Never a good look in my eyes.
Also, if you knew your opponent would be on the ground, raw pinion plus assist instead of dashing in was soooo good. Pinion didnt have the shit startup that painwheels dash had... So it made her far quicker in the neutral.
I really miss it man, and I'm still pissed... I could repeat that forever and not be satisfied.