The ethereal variation mostly gives her mobility as they said. What I got from their descriptions is that you can add pressure to your opponent and confuse them. So you if you decide to end a combo mid-way (no pun intended) you can decide to teleport behind them and start a new one to add pressure and normal mixups. Even if your opponent blocks, you're still in their face adding pressure (hello Kabal) and have the opportunity to start a new one if your opponent guesses wrong.
You can't say that's useless since it was one of Raiden's main gimmicks in M9 and it worked. You still knew that he would teleport behind you but that didn't mean it was easy to work around. It was annoying as hell. And Mileena not only has that now, she has the ability to teleport to 2 different spots AND extend her teleports. I know you might feel iffy coz she's your fav and you want her to be amazing, but give it some time. I'm sure they know what they're doing.

As for her telekicks, what exactly do you mean? She could never combo after that, unless the opponent was in the air and you hit them with an air sai after the telekick.

The mix-up isn't on cross-up's (aka what the OP is referring to...knowing which side to block on) it'll be on high-low 50/50's and resets. Or in other words, you can teleport mid-combo instead of going full damage and then make the opponent guess on either a high, a low, or a throw. So basically you force the opponent to guess and if they guess wrong they get opened up again. That's the mixup.
Also on Tele-kick didn't combo as a starter in MK9 so I'm not sure what you're talking about. You can definitely tele-kick mid-combo as a linker.

It feels like they had to reach real far to find 3 variations for her.

Maybe. Ethereal is just an expansion on her teleporting though so it's not that big of a stretch to me.

I completely disagree. The Ravenous and Piercing variations are braindead obvious. One that focuses on her teeth, one that focuses on her weapons. Ethereal is less obvious, but considering the moves Mileena has always had, mobility really suites her and trickery has always been a part of her character.

This. You can clearly see how NRS struggled to come up with three solid variations for several characters.

Lol @ "clearly see".

That!
You have the oportunity to do a reset in the middle of a standing combo while the other character is still in Stun motion, then he will have to gues if you are going to try an overhead or a low to star another combo. It also can be used to overpass proyectiles (specialy with the ex version that ́s quicker) apearing right in fron of the enemy while he is still in recovering from the proyectile animation.

Exactly, especially for charactes like Mileena that have had less than 5 moves throughout the series. Even some of the originally revealed characters like Cassie, have variations like Spec Ops that serv no purpose but to troll people with the salute/taunt, and then there's Kitana, with a Jade tribute variation.

On the other hand, the variation system works amazingly well for characters like Kano and Sub-Zero.

LOL. youre such a troll.

No they didnt. Her three variations were obvious way before they were revealed. All her variations are solely based on her various character attributes, far from "reached" or copied from another character.

At least she got something rather original instead of taking another characters weapon and making a variation out of it

And someone brings Kitana into this when no one mentioned her.

Her impact!

No he's just stating the obvious. You can't really say they had to reach "real" far to think of 3 variations for Mileena when she got 3 variations that perfectly fit her persona and powers. Let alone when there are characters that got variations that are completely random and based on other characters simply because the creators probably couldn't think of 3 original ones. Cassie, Johnny and mostly Kitana comes to mind. It's not really her "impact" lol. It's people stating the obvious. I find it funny when Kitana fans are like that when I personally would be extremely upset if my fav character stole other people's weapons and powers.

Anyway back on topic, I was kind of expecting them to give her a variation where she would stab her opponents feet on the ground to immobilize them for a free hit (a la Batgirl), coz that's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of sais. But I'm more than happy with what she got. At least she didn't get any Skarlet powers right? ;)

Mileena has never been better. All three of her variations rock.

I actually think her three variations are really interesting and fit her well

especially when compared with Kitana and Johnny who clearly NRS were scratching their heads for

though I think Reptile really got the short stick in the variation department-even his stream demo was minute compared to Ermacs


Makes me a little worried about Sonya

I think some people are taking directhit's point personally, because of fandom.

I love Mileena, but like was stated Mileena's moves are scarce to begin with. Characters like Mileena, Johnny, Kitana, and Ermac(which I'm surprised no one mentioned) are some very obvious examples of how the variation system fails.

Literally look at how effective and "varying" all three of Raiden's variations look and compare his to any of the aforementioned. There are differences in Mileena's variations, but all I keep thinking about is when they were on display during the stream the only thing you heard was "mixup".

I love Mileena, she looks cool, but they could've done more. At least she wasn't stuck with a stupid variation where she flies around screen.

Nah mate,

Sonyas gonna have
Grappler - Lots of holds and throws
Acrobatic - Cartwheel, Arc Kick and enhanced Leg Toss
Garote wire - Defensive style using Garote wire for counter attacks and holds.
I hope...


I could think of a few more for her as well... Military grade - uses her tech to enhance ring toss etc
Poisonous - Variations of her kiss dust to either stun, damage over time or drain meter. I could go on...

Actually Yes.
There are characters with more variation in his moves aresenal. Actually some of the variations are more oriented to resets(mixups) and Frame traps like Mileena ́s Ethereal and the one where Johnny charges his special moves.

But something that worried me since the beginning was that some characters would just have a useless variation.
For me, the only one that i can ́t find a practicle use is Ermac ́s Flying variation.

I'm so angry about Reptile's variations and I don't even play as him.

I mean sometimes you can see where NRS was reaching for the sun, moon, and stars trying to come up with variations for some characters but Mileena is a bad example. She was always going to have something sai and bite related. I mean honestly. And actually I think I called out a variation that focused on her teleportation months and months ago. I mean she can already teleport and that's pretty much her only kind "super" power you know? It makes sense, at least to me.

Johnny's variation makes sense to me too. He's always created after images of himself, he's just better at it in his stunt double variation.

I don't know if you and diirectwhatever dislike Mileena or whatever but lbr comparing her variations to Johnny's and Kitana's is an absolute fail. Mileena got one variation based on her sais, one based on her teleportation, and one based on her tarkatan blood. Cage and Kitana got variations based on other characters. So I don't really see your point.
If you two take a look at older speculation threads, you'll see that many people predicted that she'd get variations based on those 3 traits. So saying that she's included in the list of examples of variation fails is just mind boggling to me. Cage? Yeah. Kitana? Absolutely yes! But I fail to see how Mileena's are a fail. They were the most obvious thing. You say that people take things the wrong way because of fandom but you're not being too objective here either tbh.

As useful as Freddy's teleport in MK9.

pfffttttt....

It's not a biased opinion, even Scorpion still surprises me when I see him shooting fireballs. And Quan Chi summoning a goddamn bat WTF? I feel like some variations are forced a bit. Mileena does have a teleport, but she never struck me as a teleporting-type. But I'm not complaining, I'm just glad they fixed her damn teeth, that's how she should have always looked imo.

Whether she struck you or not, the fact is that she always had a telekick. And this proves she had teleporting powers since MK2. MK9 established that too (see gif above). They just never utilized her teleporting abilities properly in her gameplay. It was about time. And above all, it makes perfect sense!

I don't see why anyone wouldn't like her Ethereal variation. It seems like it can be used to link more combos together, add tons of fast pressure and confusion, and the big one.. Get out of corners.