Itachi is like those ninjas that the kit doesn't have much, but in battle it becomes very broken. In addition to the two eso he gives sleep and blindness for 2 rounds, has a mirror for each ninja but the important thing is the fact that it damages ninjas with control, this is the same mechanics of ibiki.

the chinese itachi has great esoteric damage and is a perfect shisui support, if he wins shisui attacks he will certainly do some damage. Aside from the new stat that is broken, every stat that deals damage based on life is very good, it's different than a flame or poison.

I'm sorry but what are you talking about? edo itachi is clearly the better support for shisui and cs doesnt deal any damage based on life at least not as far as our in-game description or konoha proxy shows and as we both acknowledged he is a suport character not a main so outside of arena the damage his mysteries will do are not gonna swing things in your favour. The only thing he can consistently land is amaterasu which as said only cuts 1% off the enemies scaling which is negligble at best, a 6p scaling at 14% per attack instead of 15 or a shisui scaling at 5% per attacak dealt and 6% per attack suffered , they are still gonna do a ton of damage and the scaling will still heavily heavily outweigh itachi's amaterasu. It decreases def/res when they take damage but by a tiny amount so using it with a multiple attack ninja like shisui or tendo is a moot point since everytime shisui uses a standard or chase and every time tendo uses a mystery itachi cuts their damage by 15% overwriting the tiny amount of stat decrease the opponent has.

Lets talk about a few commonly faced characters and what each itachi can do against them to try and explain my train of thought.

Vs shisui

Edo itachi:

can increase mystery cost so he shisui cant mystery and lock one of your units down

His chase works very well with his own shisui and doesnt weaken him in the process

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Vs 6p

Edo itachi:

Increase mystery cost

Cut damage from first 3 incoming standards in half

Reflects the control of his chase

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Vs Madara edo tensei release

Edo itachi:

Increase mystery cost

Interrupt/control sasori

Reflects his chases immobile

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Fear but only if your team triggers a chase on madara ( which shisui wont do becasue madara is a front row character) before madara can mystery and give himself super armour

Vs edo Zabuza

Edo itachi:

Can cause dream, shutting zabuza down completely

Can intterrupt/control sasori/fire main, supprting characters that are there to remove debuffs from zabuza

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Fear but only if the zabuza isnt supported by a mangetsu

vs Oro gnw

Edo itachi:

Can cause dream, preventing oro from summoning more kages turning him into a piece of furniture

Can reflect his mystery's immobile

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Vs jiraiya toad chant

Edo itachi:

Can interrupt barrier or failing that can cause dream so jiraiya cant cause extreme chaos

Can dodge chases to cut all these jiriaya chase-blitz teams short

Reflects potentially both of jiriayas extreme chaos targets

Itachi cs:

Amaterasu

Fear, if you target jiriaya with a specific mystery

Against both stacked carry characters and back row supports edo itachi is a sure fire thing. His mystery combines control with mystery cost increase and is unavoidable, while he himself has a dodge, grants team wide mirrors, cuts first incoming nin damage in half, shisui leads into his chase with no downside.

Whereas itachi chinese style seems to be purely decorational, all flash but no substance amaterasu is the only thing he has that you can rely on him landing, other than that the one and only useful tool in his arsenal is fear but it is impossible to land on 6p or shisui and can only affect madara if itachi lands a chase before madara gets to mystery and get super armour. His mysteries are a useless waste of chakra as all they do is inflict a debuff that his standard already deals to multiple units and you are using a character that weakens your own team more than he weakens the opponent and what do you get i exchange for playing with anchor holding you back? you get a character who buffs just 1 of his skills and it is the same skill that is useless against any pos 1 we currently encounter. So either you build your team around itachi cs, a subpar support character or you will have a team whose "support" character is actually a liability holding your other characters back, unless the team is tailor made for itachi and itachi alone then he is like a spy for the opponent because he does more to benefit them than he does his own team because his skilset is such a poor trade off.......... I really do not see the upside

"Is it just me or does itachi cs sound awful?"

It's just you. he is amazing for many reasons but to make it short:

1) Amazing pos1 damage dealer no idea what are you talking about with him doing meh damage

2) Good support for hidden jutsu users (making their mystery undodgeable), soon BT NY hashirama or maybe BT Indra might need it very much to be meta

3) Mystery that can't be locked by shisui

4) Ninja that can't be targeted by any mystery inluding those that increase chakra / CC

5) Amaterasu debuff is insane value for group fights removing revives

6) Very strong dmg debuffer both for increase / decrease from amaterasu

Edo and CS Itachi are completly different ninjas so no idea why you are even trying to compare them. Both are amazing in what they do.

That being said tho, is he worth insta 40k ingots recharge? Hell no just wait for coupons version in fuku deals or soon to be released CS Sasuke who might be better.