Idk the greater community’s opinion on double’s prestige, but the few people I spoke to agreed with me: double’s prestige is unusable.
Sorry this is gonna be long, but I believe in backing up my opinions. And yes, if any of you trawl the subreddit I’m FriNoggin, That Guy who makes overly long comments and gives too much information about playing Beowulf. So… that’s the energy you’re getting here. Aroo.
Starting with her fighter ability: on defense transmuting on block is a good way to force players to be more aggressive against the ai and work to make sure they can either bypass her block or block tap enough to stop her from transmuting and convince the ai to make an opening. Transmuting on offense though, not good. The ai is aggressive enough at higher difficulty that you can manage one, maybe two transmutes before getting tapped (and with enough blocking you eat bb3). Add to that the random elemental choice means most matches you won’t ever get to the element you need.
As it’s very slow and unreliable, it’s the only fighter ability that’s actually more useless than peacock and painwheel (pea can at least kind of dodge if you don’t bork the double down swipe, and painwheel has the grab extension). Idk how much elemental advantage adds to damage, but 10% (30% with base stats) seems too low to be worth the effort. Sure it might happen on its own thanks to the miracle of blocking, but this is only sort of reliable at lower level gameplay. In diamond this is hardly effective.
Now to her prestige: at 13% charge rate per transmute, it takes 7 attempts to charge. 7 seconds isn’t that long, but needing the space to get transmutes is extremely difficult, especially when you need to be attacking as much as possible. Compare the time spent trying to transmute compared to other prestige’s. these are the first three easiest I thought of:
- Beowulf: needs 6 grabs and 2 hype activations. Beo has wulf shoot in his kit which increases the speed at which this can be done, and is balanced by needing the skill curve to pull it off and the money for buffing special cooldown, as well as the damage boost not doing too much until roughly 1:20 has passed.
- Valentine: passively charges as long as you have ICU. Last hope gets instant charge on death.
- Robofortune: as all variants have incredibly easy access to both buffs and debuffs getting the activation in less than 45s is incredibly easy (not to mention instant full charge for persona at 30s).
Now, double’s prestige increase to elemental advantage is massive, and pulling it off is going to mean the amount of damage you deal is enough to blast through opponents. Maybe. Honestly I’m guessing because I’ve never pulled it off because of the second barrier to success: more transmuting.
After somehow managing 7 transmutes to charge you then have to transmute more to get to elemental advantage. Because it’s random there’s a high chance you’ll never get it before the end of the match (or you eat a bb3 and die, which is what happens to me whenever I try). The huge amount of elemental damage boost you get out of that sure seems like it’s balanced by this, but in practice it’s prohibitive. There needs to be some kind of adjustments to transmuting and/or her prestige to make this legitimately viable.
To add to all of this: the moment you have the element you need you cannot block anymore unless you can timed block. Which is just frustrating, but that’s me. Double mains are probably very good at timed blocks, plus several other variants have timed blocks so not a complaint. [Side note: why not a double variant with timed blocks?] There’s also flesh step, but you’re taking up a move slot for something that doesn’t deal damage that also prevents you from transmuting, which means it’s likely to not actually help.
From here I’m going to spitball ideas. I’m not the devs, I can’t see what the metadata is, heck I’ve been playing almost strictly Beowulf for over a year and stopped playing double over three years ago (though that’s mostly because I’m extremely bad with her kit, which I know is deceptively long, but if you’re hammering with her longer combos you’re not transmuting). Maybe I’m entirely wrong and there’s double mains dunking it; I’d suggest finding them and asking their opinion instead of mine. Also I do see where any of my suggestions can potentially bork the balance, but that’s where testing comes in:
- Faster transmuting would mean faster charges and a greater likelihood of getting both the correct element and the prestige activation, as well as punishing transmuting off element considerably less. Squigly’s dragon charge and headhunter’s SA I think are good comparison cases here. Maybe 8 rotations at a faster transmute speed is the way to go.
- Faster prestige meter, maybe 5 transmutes, would certainly speed up the activation while still keeping the need to randomly gain advantage.
- A tiny buff to the transmutation algorithm to allow a better chance of rolling into elemental advantage. I see where this would probably be the worst to balance though, as something as small as 3% vs 4% can throw everything off (see: feline lucky somehow luckily rolling 3 triggers in a match). This also makes xeno, misty, and heart sad, not to mention jawbreaker and evergreen too happy. Temple would probably be more useful though, as she cannot function without advantage.
- Free rotation to elemental advantage on prestige activation. Makes it 100% reliable and you still have to worry about accidentally transmuting off. Again though, jawbreaker and evergreen become too strong here, and temple may become too useful. I like this suggestion conceptually, hate it overall, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it.
- Maybe instead gain the algorithm buff as part of the prestige and not transmutation. It’s still gated by activation, but more likely to allow the ability to be useful.
- Blockbuster lock on burst (since you can get 1, maybe 2 transmutes after burst), or even anywhere in her kit. I don’t remember if anyone other than Parasoul has this on burst, and while heal block is good in only some matches, bb lock would mean less punishment while you spend most of the match trying to transmute. Heal block isn’t universally useful like other burst options.
- Transmute on taunt. Taunt takes up time spent not blocking so you lose out on transmutation attempts. It’s a bad option though as once you lock into your element you can’t use it, but again I’m throwing all my thoughts out.
- Balance [transmuting/prestige] [speed/reliability] with a lower prestige boost value. Idk how much elemental advantage can add, but with the prestige boost at 70% you’ll still have a 100% bonus to elemental advantage between that, base stats, and fighter ability. As elemental advantage on moves has to compete with so many other options, getting that activation more reliably would feel good for players, as well as reward them for choosing elemental damage boost over other offensive stats. Maybe it’ll still be too big of a boost to damage, but curbing the prestige bonus for more reliability would go a really long way to adding to gameplay. Players want reliability.
My final defense: Having god-tier power means nothing if you can’t actually use it.
Sorry this is gonna be long, but I believe in backing up my opinions. And yes, if any of you trawl the subreddit I’m FriNoggin, That Guy who makes overly long comments and gives too much information about playing Beowulf. So… that’s the energy you’re getting here. Aroo.
Starting with her fighter ability: on defense transmuting on block is a good way to force players to be more aggressive against the ai and work to make sure they can either bypass her block or block tap enough to stop her from transmuting and convince the ai to make an opening. Transmuting on offense though, not good. The ai is aggressive enough at higher difficulty that you can manage one, maybe two transmutes before getting tapped (and with enough blocking you eat bb3). Add to that the random elemental choice means most matches you won’t ever get to the element you need.
As it’s very slow and unreliable, it’s the only fighter ability that’s actually more useless than peacock and painwheel (pea can at least kind of dodge if you don’t bork the double down swipe, and painwheel has the grab extension). Idk how much elemental advantage adds to damage, but 10% (30% with base stats) seems too low to be worth the effort. Sure it might happen on its own thanks to the miracle of blocking, but this is only sort of reliable at lower level gameplay. In diamond this is hardly effective.
Now to her prestige: at 13% charge rate per transmute, it takes 7 attempts to charge. 7 seconds isn’t that long, but needing the space to get transmutes is extremely difficult, especially when you need to be attacking as much as possible. Compare the time spent trying to transmute compared to other prestige’s. these are the first three easiest I thought of:
- Beowulf: needs 6 grabs and 2 hype activations. Beo has wulf shoot in his kit which increases the speed at which this can be done, and is balanced by needing the skill curve to pull it off and the money for buffing special cooldown, as well as the damage boost not doing too much until roughly 1:20 has passed.
- Valentine: passively charges as long as you have ICU. Last hope gets instant charge on death.
- Robofortune: as all variants have incredibly easy access to both buffs and debuffs getting the activation in less than 45s is incredibly easy (not to mention instant full charge for persona at 30s).
Now, double’s prestige increase to elemental advantage is massive, and pulling it off is going to mean the amount of damage you deal is enough to blast through opponents. Maybe. Honestly I’m guessing because I’ve never pulled it off because of the second barrier to success: more transmuting.
After somehow managing 7 transmutes to charge you then have to transmute more to get to elemental advantage. Because it’s random there’s a high chance you’ll never get it before the end of the match (or you eat a bb3 and die, which is what happens to me whenever I try). The huge amount of elemental damage boost you get out of that sure seems like it’s balanced by this, but in practice it’s prohibitive. There needs to be some kind of adjustments to transmuting and/or her prestige to make this legitimately viable.
To add to all of this: the moment you have the element you need you cannot block anymore unless you can timed block. Which is just frustrating, but that’s me. Double mains are probably very good at timed blocks, plus several other variants have timed blocks so not a complaint. [Side note: why not a double variant with timed blocks?] There’s also flesh step, but you’re taking up a move slot for something that doesn’t deal damage that also prevents you from transmuting, which means it’s likely to not actually help.
From here I’m going to spitball ideas. I’m not the devs, I can’t see what the metadata is, heck I’ve been playing almost strictly Beowulf for over a year and stopped playing double over three years ago (though that’s mostly because I’m extremely bad with her kit, which I know is deceptively long, but if you’re hammering with her longer combos you’re not transmuting). Maybe I’m entirely wrong and there’s double mains dunking it; I’d suggest finding them and asking their opinion instead of mine. Also I do see where any of my suggestions can potentially bork the balance, but that’s where testing comes in:
- Faster transmuting would mean faster charges and a greater likelihood of getting both the correct element and the prestige activation, as well as punishing transmuting off element considerably less. Squigly’s dragon charge and headhunter’s SA I think are good comparison cases here. Maybe 8 rotations at a faster transmute speed is the way to go.
- Faster prestige meter, maybe 5 transmutes, would certainly speed up the activation while still keeping the need to randomly gain advantage.
- A tiny buff to the transmutation algorithm to allow a better chance of rolling into elemental advantage. I see where this would probably be the worst to balance though, as something as small as 3% vs 4% can throw everything off (see: feline lucky somehow luckily rolling 3 triggers in a match). This also makes xeno, misty, and heart sad, not to mention jawbreaker and evergreen too happy. Temple would probably be more useful though, as she cannot function without advantage.
- Free rotation to elemental advantage on prestige activation. Makes it 100% reliable and you still have to worry about accidentally transmuting off. Again though, jawbreaker and evergreen become too strong here, and temple may become too useful. I like this suggestion conceptually, hate it overall, but I would be remiss if I didn’t include it.
- Maybe instead gain the algorithm buff as part of the prestige and not transmutation. It’s still gated by activation, but more likely to allow the ability to be useful.
- Blockbuster lock on burst (since you can get 1, maybe 2 transmutes after burst), or even anywhere in her kit. I don’t remember if anyone other than Parasoul has this on burst, and while heal block is good in only some matches, bb lock would mean less punishment while you spend most of the match trying to transmute. Heal block isn’t universally useful like other burst options.
- Transmute on taunt. Taunt takes up time spent not blocking so you lose out on transmutation attempts. It’s a bad option though as once you lock into your element you can’t use it, but again I’m throwing all my thoughts out.
- Balance [transmuting/prestige] [speed/reliability] with a lower prestige boost value. Idk how much elemental advantage can add, but with the prestige boost at 70% you’ll still have a 100% bonus to elemental advantage between that, base stats, and fighter ability. As elemental advantage on moves has to compete with so many other options, getting that activation more reliably would feel good for players, as well as reward them for choosing elemental damage boost over other offensive stats. Maybe it’ll still be too big of a boost to damage, but curbing the prestige bonus for more reliability would go a really long way to adding to gameplay. Players want reliability.
My final defense: Having god-tier power means nothing if you can’t actually use it.
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