Annie’a Marquee ability: Redshift & Blueshift

[MugPug]

THIS IS NOT OKAYYYY. Listen, for you who don’t know Annie has just been announced (yes yay yay whatevs) on the Skullgirls mobile Twitter account they’ve been giving us previews on what she’s going to play like, variants, etc. on their account they’ve just revealed her marquee ability and it is not okay.

Annie’s Marquee 1: Redshift- Each special move and blockbuster will increase ALL special move and blockbusters damage by 25% for the rest of the combo.

Annie’s Marquee 2: Blueshift- Opponents deal 40% less damage on combo hits less than 5.


Do you see why this is a problem, how broken these are. These are LITERALLY perfect for offense and defense. The devs KNEW what was going to happen. No one character should have all dat power.

Anyways that’s it, I’m thinking of adding a list of characters that I think may need buffs in the future would you like that? But regardless STAY SAFE EAT CAKE.

 

[ZeoW]

It'd be helpful if you could elaborate what makes these a problem instead of simply stating that it is broken. Why do you think so? Have you considered Annie's weaknesses? What does her base stats look like? What makes these abilities significantly better than other characters? How does Annie's AI behave?

There's a lot of things to consider before making such a statement.

 

[MugPug]

It'd be helpful if you could elaborate what makes these a problem instead of simply stating that it is broken. Why do you think so? Have you considered Annie's weaknesses? What does her base stats look like? What makes these abilities significantly better than other characters? How does Annie's AI behave?

There's a lot of things to consider before making such a statement.

The thing that make the ability so broken is just the versatility at a basis even without seeing the attack stat of Annie.

Lets starts with the Redshift: Annie gameplay shows she has a prowess of stringing combos with her amazing special moves and Star power giving her special moves enhances abilities. The marquee ability allows for great damage on offense as while stringing in these combos waiting for the final blockbuster to end the combo you are consistently gaining strength and damage onto your opponent and the last blockbuster will deal THAT much more damage. Regardless of base attack stat, the ability is just good on offense.

Onto the second ability Blueshift: This one is quite obvious if you’ve played the game. A LOT of moves have low combo hits (Almost anything from Beo, Daisy Pusher, Silent Scope, Almost everything from Cerebella, Gehenna, Best Friends Forever, Blowout,Trichobezoar, Bang Bang Bang!, Countervenom, Forbidden Procedure, Beat Extend, SSJ, Fifth of Dismember, Magnet, the list goes on.) While a lot of these are used in combos especially late into combos a lot of players use them as counters or for a quick hit. This ability reduces the damage by 40% that’s almost half the damage that you would normally do. Now you have to deal long combo strings to deal maximum damage and depending on the prize fight (Like Ms.Fortune’s) or catalyst they have you can cause other problems if your combo is too long. (Armor catalyst)

These abilities are only amplified once you realize that she has the guard break and auto guard status effects that can stop you if you are trying to rack up a combo or break your block if you’re trying to avoid getting your team trashed by her attacks.

One of the main things that make me say this is broken is the fact that unlike most of the marquee abilities we’ve seen so far there’s really no way around this. No precision, No immunity or hex or Curse, no variant counter like there is with other marquee abilities. These are just purely beneficial and I see no way of getting around them or avoiding the problems they make.

 

[ZeoW]

Thanks for the reply, the explanations makes it much more clear!

Alright, let me try to argue some of your points:

Annie relies on a string of combos to really make use of her Marquee Ability and the damage will cap at 125%. That's a lot of damage boost but Annie's base stats seem to be the same as Parasoul which has average ATK and HP stat based on fighter score. Like Parasoul, she needs that damage boost if she wants to deal any sort of damage against tough defenders. A problem with relying on long combo strings is that it has a higher chance to activate whatever defensive SAs or catalysts in the game. A simple example is Heavy Metal and Frost Armor. How is Annie gonna deal any damage to this guy? And then there are SAs like Love Crafted, Assassin's Greed and Dreadlocks that will make it difficult or punishes you if you want to reach that cap. It does not seem to be at the same level as Parasoul pre-Crit Mass nerf where she can easily gain 200% bonus damage with low number of hits, access to IMMUNITY and on-demand PRECISION. Annie's Marquee Ability is awesome, but it's not without drawbacks and she doesn't have the same utility as Parasoul when it comes to countering top defenders in the game. Certain variants do have access to these abilities, but it seems to depend a whole lot on STAR POWER which means you'll have to wait till it's charged before doing anything.

Onto defense. I mean, most people usually attack with a full ground combo (which is exactly 5 hits) and then finish off with a high damage blockbuster in the end. By that point, you'll already reach 5+ combo hits. You seem to understand the problem with long combo strings, wouldn't that apply to Annie too? And Annie's defensive Marquee Ability still doesn't stop any sort of BLEED strategies that don't even care about your stats. It's difficult to say whether GUARD BREAK or AUTOBLOCK will make an impact on the defense since it seems that those BUFFS/DEBUFFS are given from SAs which from the reveals are mostly given on STAR POWER activation, which again requires some time to charge. Maybe Annie's catalysts can change this but like any other BUFFS/DEBUFFS, IMMUNITY and CURSE (Sketchy strats) still stops them and OUTTAKES is still a way to deal with it. If there's one or two variants that can remove this weakness, then that's awesome. But I doubt it's at the defensive level of Splitting Image that literally has no real counters. And then there's still the AI to consider.

Annie looks strong, but I think it's still too early to make any claims until she's released and more of her variants (especially the Diamond ones) are revealed.

 

[Stone]

It does not seem to be at the same level as Parasoul pre-Crit Mass nerf where she can easily gain 200% bonus damage with low number of hits, access to IMMUNITY and on-demand PRECISION. Annie's Marquee Ability is awesome, but it's not without drawbacks and she doesn't have the same utility as Parasoul when it comes to countering top defenders in the game.

In my opinion, this is an unfair comparison. Parasoul's utility is insane with her FAST taunt and precision taunt (2 taunts! Which are both cancelable too, again: insane). You can say this is far superior to most, if not any other character in the game. That said, comparing only to Parasoul while you should look at the whole roster seems to downplay Annie.

Other than that, I like the attacking MA: string low-hitting specials together and finish with a blockbuster to deal some great damage.

The defense seems a bit annoying, especially for beo, cerebella (grab spam in corner) and maybe double (grab to d1 to slide -> slide will be weak while it usually is double's damage output). A frost armor node together with brainfreeze already seems frustrating. However, I'd like to experience it before actually deciding whether its too good or just a small obstacle. I just want to know if it is affected by piercing and if it comes on top of the 50% if you max defense.

 

[ZeoW]

In my opinion, this is an unfair comparison. Parasoul's utility is insane with her FAST taunt and precision taunt (2 taunts! Which are both cancelable too, again: insane). You can say this is far superior to most, if not any other character in the game. That said, comparing only to Parasoul while you should look at the whole roster seems to downplay Annie.

I compared with Parasoul because they appear to share the same base stats to argue that Annie's Marquee is strong but is carefully balanced by the rest of her kit. I apologize if I wasn't clear on that. If Parasoul is a far superior character, then that further reinforces what I'm trying to argue.

I just want to know if it is affected by piercing and if it comes on top of the 50% if you max defense.

From the wording, it directly reduces the opponent's damage so it shouldn't be affected by anything.

 

[fanghoul]

I was making this comment elsewhere, but these MA's seem specifically seem aimed at a strategy that I've been a proponent of a bit, where you just make a few big hit to bypass a lot of the worse effects in this game.

Redshift in particular seems to make it impossible to use this strategy which is... interesting. It also makes Annie a higher skill character to use. I have a couple characters that I'm decent at stringing combos with but honestly this game is tricky to learn these things in. It'll be interesting to see how easy she is to learn.

Blueshift I have to understand a little more how it stacks with defense to really get an idea whether it's OP. 90% damage resistance would be a bit much, and would basically annihilate the option of using Parasoul to shoot your way through things. Which... might even be fair? That strategy basically works 99.9% of the time right now. Other characters will suffer as well, but it's doesn't seem completely insurmountable. Honestly, I thought they had it written up backwards at first since the big hit on so many moves comes after a series of smaller hits.