>>227862
>>227866
Elphelt was one of the "2000s animu bullshit" aesthetic characters introduced in Xrd's first version, along with Sin, Ramlethal, and Bedman. She was based on puns like fighting with Guns 'n' Roses (bouquets, etc.) and being a literal shotgun bride. At the time people hated her because she felt like weeaboo/oktau pandering, which she was; she had paragraphs of unique win quotes for each character, proposing marriage and romance fantasies to the men and comparing cup sizes and hairstyles with the women.
She is still basically that kind of perpetually out of breath, happy-go-lucky, manic pixie dream girl character in Strive but her design and mechanics are very different. Xrd Elphelt has two stances: rifle for zoning, and shotgun for pressure. The rifle stance couldn't return since Happy Chaos's gun mechanic is already an almost direct copy of Elphelt's rifle, and because the other notable thing about rifle is that it can set up unblockables, which are cancer (and not allowed in Strive). The shotgun stance couldn't return since it's probably one of the most insanely overtuned things I've ever seen in any fighting game, and what you do with it most of the time is put your opponent in the corner, whip out shotgun, and put them to a very specific execution/defense test in order for them to escape. This is also anti-Strive design, since Strive has forced wallbreaks after any combo that connects near the corner, and the defensive mechanics are meant to be more straightforward/universal so having specific knowledge checks which loop back into themselves is forbidden.
Elphelt also has the Pine Berry grenade, which is another of the most insanely overtuned things I've ever seen in any fighting game. It could not come back because it gives her a lot of flexbility (poke > grenade pull for safety, poke > grenade toss for combos/starting pressure) and actually saves her from making mistakes because any hit she takes while carrying the grenade will detonate it, screwing up her opponent's combo. Also, all of her normals are incredibly good, her combos deals tons of damage and are very stable, and her backdash is one of the best in the game.
Strive Elphelt seems to be a "flail around and do what you want" character, in that her rifle projectiles will home in after a certain time so they can still connect even if you miss. Her grenade is now a toss + leap forward, so you get an airdash/jump-in mixup if you set it up properly but it can't be used in any other way. Instead of her shotgun stance, she now has Chain Lollipop, which is a series of 4 attacks that can be cancelled into each other to pretend you have freeform gatlings and pressure. It's vaguely similar to the kind of pressure she would do with shotgun stance in Xrd but a lot more limited, as usual.