HL has his position because he's a turtle, he's got a favourable matchup against Warden because he can dodge every timing of the SB without needing to roll. He's got a favourable matchup against Nuxia because you can dodge every indicator on light timing then light back (stopping her using her chains). I think he's favourable against Tiandi because the dodge lights are 600ms to 700ms when you consider the movement into the dodge on top of the attack timing, giving him plenty of time to cancel OS to parry, only thing Tiandi's got is a dodge recovery cancel but that is unlikely to win him this fight, just nullify the kick punish after a chain starter, which you shouldn't be doing anyway.

Reason he's dropped out of S tier is because without diagonal back dodges he struggles to get back into OS after being hit out of it.