I agree with Ve. Tager is a joke at close range and a joke from far too.
He's kinda like Hakan. He has no reversal till he gets 50 meter, his normals suck, he barely has any combos and they do NO damage compared to the rest of the cast, he has no safe ways of getting in and staying in, and it doesn't really matter if he's in or not since everyone has better normals and reversals than him.
I mean I play Makoto and the only time I start thinking when I vs a Tager is when he's an I.B monster and even then, I need to fuck up big time for him to win.
Arcsys should get inspiration from SSF4 Abel when tweaking Tager. Abel seems to me like a very well designed grappler. A fast way to get in, damaging close range combos, frame traps where your only alternative is to DP or Jump, a good command grab, good pokes, a decent anti air, ridiculous mix up and okay ish reversal options.
Zangief is a good grappler too but he lacks a safe way to get in. He has ridiculously good pokes and a stupidly good oki game to make up for that though.
Tager needs a LOT of stuff to be a good character in Blazblue.
What I think would make him better:
1. More + frames on GF. GF should really limit the opponent's options to block the mixup or reversal
2. A better way to get in. Some thing like Abel's roll or T.Hawk's dive with less recovery
3. Better/faster normals(includes AA).
4. Unlimited Tager's sparkbolt gauge. And startup projectile invincible spark bolt.
5. More damaging combos. It's sad that a 2C fatal gets 4k at best.
6. Command grab grab invincibility. I laugh so hard when I walk up to Tagers as Hazama and CG them on wake up while they try to 720.
7. Anti air grab super.
Don't think Arcsys is ever gonna make him good though.