• [2018/06/22]
    By using our forums, and our in-game services, you agree to be bound by our Privacy Policy found here:
    skullgirlsmobile.com/privacy

Characters Glacial Ghoul is such a wasted opportunity

Kheul

Active Member
Joined
Feb 5, 2021
Messages
118
Reaction score
110
Points
43
Age
24
I've had the chance to test her out in Parallel Realms and oh boy where do I even begin...

gg.jpeg
(Props to @Krazete thank you for the great UI and nice special touches)

---

Let's begin with her Signature Abilites. She has such an uninspired and unnecessarily gimmicky Signature Ability, it doesn't suit to a newer Diamond unit. The gimmickiness of a character's signature ability should be in proportion to its power and potential. However her signature ability is neither powerful nor easy to use and I thought Mekastar was mid, silly me.

What does she do? She gains Barrier when gaining a Dragon Charge and when she uses the last Charge she converts them to HP. There are two things wrong with it.

1) Her second SA requires her to have both Barrier and Charge, so completely consuming them is self-contradictory. The payoff is minimal.
2) Realistically speaking, any Squigly player will try to gain Dragon Charge whenever it is possible as it opens up more combos and lets her deal more damage, specifically making her consume all stacks with little to no gain makes no sense. Sure Silver Chord + Dragn Bite does the trick, but then you won't be activating your SA2, so many things to consider for so little...

What about her second SA? They went with Star Shine formula after seeing her being incredibly strong and popular in the meta, totally understandable. There are many things wrong with it.

1) Self-contradictory to SA1
2) Such a gimmicky SA for so little payoff.
3) The word "Permanent" doesn't really mean anything here as they will be constantly removed anyways.
4) She is literally dead and even her Marquee and Prestige interacts with dead bodies why she gets weaker upon defeating an opponent, she started having second thoughts?
5) Enrage after every 6 seconds. That is 30 seconds for her max damage to kick in and it is removed on takedown, she doesn't even have a high base ATK.
6) Permanent Immunity after 12 seconds which is also removed on takedown as well. If I ever need Immunity I will stick to a Parasoul or just Gravedigger. Oh wait! Squigly has a built-in Immunity as well! So if I use her Taunt and this together... I would have Double Debuff Protection!!1!

So her gameplay has literally no flow. She has so many bumps here and there which throttles the flow and doesn't provide a smooth gameplay. How did we come to this after releasing a unit like Deal Breaker who has one of the best gameplay flows in the game?

She doesn't seem to be suitable for Defense except for her statline, at best she is a Hybrid, a messy one at that.

---

Her incredibly lackluster Signature Abilites aside, let's look at her special effects. So she has some snowy effects and applies Dahlia's Ice Shot momentarily to the opponents she defeat. Not too bad in terms of effects, but it can be improved.

The moment I see her special takedown effect, I felt like there was such a big wasted opportunity for her. I had some thoughts the moment I saw her in action about what could have been implemented instead:

1) A new type of Debuff could have been implemented which can also be used for icy variants in the future, like Frostbite.
Frostbite:
Slows movement by 10%. Upon reaching 5 stacks, freezes and absorbs all damage taken for 3 seconds. When timer expires, shatters and deals all absorbed damage taken at once knocking the opponent down, ignoring damage reduction and reflection effects.

2) She could have had a freezing effect without the help of a Debuff just like Dahlia. Maybe last hit of Blockbusters could have triggered it?

3) Defeated opponents could have stayed as Ice Statues and interacted with those around them. Such as giving constant buffs or debuffs.

---

I don't even play Squigly much or haven't watched Frozen but I hope she will be revised as it just feels sad to see such a weak and rushed unit. She has literally nothing unique going for her except her special effects. Please give her a purpose.
 
Good points. I feel a similar way with the new Dahlia as well... Tried her out and was honestly rather disappointed

From the new wave of variants, Band and Annie feel the best to use. To me at least
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheul
Good points. I feel a similar way with the new Dahlia as well... Tried her out and was honestly rather disappointed

From the new wave of variants, Band and Annie feel the best to use. To me at least
Haven't had the chance to try the new Dahlia yet, but yeah she sounds really weird just from reading her SA. Isn't she a bit too similar to Trigger Happy? I wonder why they felt like making something so similar as Dahlia already has a variant that does damage to opponent's teammates.
 
Haven't had the chance to try the new Dahlia yet, but yeah she sounds really weird just from reading her SA. Isn't she a bit too similar to Trigger Happy? I wonder why they felt like making something so similar as Dahlia already has a variant that does damage to opponent's teammates.
More or less but with more utility. What's awkward is that lightning shots trigger disable tag ins and if I'm understanding this correctly, following shots apply damage to allies in reserve. So the 1st lightning shot only applies disable tag ins and the remaining 2 are the damage

The chance to trigger disable BB for the additional damage is awkward to say the least. Mouse trap is far more efficient and use of both may result in missed timings and loss of damage (speculation at this point)

Using her just didn't feel fun. It looks like they're trying to make Dame Slayer 2.0 with more reliable lightning shots, but have missed the mark in my eyes

Maybe if I play around with a custom build I'd find more satisfaction in using her, but as of right now... not a fan
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheul
This Squigly requires a lot of extra things: Barrier support (Starlight/Rock Star), different move patterns (to keep at least one charge), and wait time (for her to pop off). Squiglies tend to not be burst characters so the wait time feels like it'll pass by naturally. She's definitely not a variant you can just pop in and expect to get results immediately, like Love Crafted.

I would argue the Immunity is quite big though, Squigly tends to be greedy with move slots - you could easily chain all five moves together in one combo, so having to interrupt that with a Taunt reduces your damage quite a bit. I do wish she had a debuff cleanse from her SA1 to compliment her Immunity on SA2.

One thing that could be interesting to test is whether consuming those Barriers with her SA and Rock Star in the back grants her meter right away. That could potentially be huge.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheul and Dusty00
Very good points, Its a unique concept that was executed very poorly. Hopefully she gets buffed or even reworked.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheul
Great observation and points Kheul and Zeow. Water variants are really hard to design because devs like to make them both offensive and defensive so most come out mediocre or gimmicky.

My initial day 1 reaction to her is that she has potential to be an annoying water defender on the right trio team setup for rift. She is probably a S tier for rift defense but low in everything else as-is.

Hopefully they will focus more on variant tuning in 2025 and Glacial gets a treatment similar to Megalomaniac.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Kheul
This Squigly requires a lot of extra things: Barrier support (Starlight/Rock Star), different move patterns (to keep at least one charge), and wait time (for her to pop off). Squiglies tend to not be burst characters so the wait time feels like it'll pass by naturally.
This unit is indeed really needy in terms of supports, but I don't mind it much when it is implemented right. For example Mummy Dearest is a really needy unit as well, but when she is utilized with proper supports she becomes a one man army. Years ago Jawbreaker and + 2 Evergreen Evil worked the same way for me, EEs complemented her so well that I felt like I could beat anything game threw at me. X-Bot + Harlequin etc. there are many more examples but you get the point.

I think this kind of power dynamic is really important, as you are giving up your other fighter slots just to complement your main dps it SHOULD feel like your dps is at least 2-3 man strong. I genuinely don't think any of these or other supports can complement her that much, it is not because those supports are weak but she is just that bad.

She's definitely not a variant you can just pop in and expect to get results immediately, like Love Crafted.
Yeah that is their design choice. But I don't see her SA2 saving the day after it finally activates just to be removed after the kill. She has really primitive tools to work with. A tad bit of healing, BARRIER, ENRAGE and IMMUNITY. And the way they are incorporated to her kit is unnecessarily gimmicky for the thing she provides.

I would argue the Immunity is quite big though, Squigly tends to be greedy with move slots - you could easily chain all five moves together in one combo, so having to interrupt that with a Taunt reduces your damage quite a bit. I do wish she had a debuff cleanse from her SA1 to compliment her Immunity on SA2.
Sure Perma Immu has its value in certain situations but I prefer Immu on demand or an easier/practical way of getting an Immu instead. Stalling for 12 seconds when you can get one immediately doesn't seem that good to me, at least it is Permanent so it doesn't get removed easily.

That said, I can't think of any actual situation where I prefer to Immunity to kick in later on, even if it has the "permanent" attribute.
One thing that could be interesting to test is whether consuming those Barriers with her SA and Rock Star in the back grants her meter right away. That could potentially be huge.
I didn't think this would work when I was testing her as Rock Star specifically works when a barrier is expired, so no timer no expiration. Do you know any exceptions to this? Should have tried just to be sure.
 
I think this kind of power dynamic is really important, as you are giving up your other fighter slots just to complement your main dps it SHOULD feel like your dps is at least 2-3 man strong. I genuinely don't think any of these or other supports can complement her that much, it is not because those supports are weak but she is just that bad.
You really think so? I mean, Starlight Rose is HUGE here (note that their Enrages don't overlap since one is permanent and the other isn't, so you could have more than five stacks). Add EE as you said and.. well, that's a lot of Enrages for a character that typically have below average ATK.
 
You really think so? I mean, Starlight Rose is HUGE here (note that their Enrages don't overlap since one is permanent and the other isn't, so you could have more than five stacks). Add EE as you said and.. well, that's a lot of Enrages for a character that typically have below average ATK.
Limiting an exclusive diamond unit's possibly best synergy behind another (ex-exclusive) diamond is just bad. For sure they would pair nicely, but that is purely Starlight Rose, Glacial just makes Starlight Rose work better and capitalize on it.

Normally different bonus damage multipliers don't stack up properly and cause the said unit to deal less damage, but if it's purely enrage I think there should be no problem.

Well, at the end she is just a straightforward bruiser but with unnecessary gimmicks. I wish they were more creative with the theme or at least didn't make her so counterproductive for the thing she provides.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mukwamba