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From what I've seen, the community have been very positive to Big Band's overall character rework changes. His gameplay is more smooth, his combo potential is better (that's what he does best!) and his ability effects have been updated to modern standards. The fact that the devs have decided to update his kit brings me hope that we could see other reworks for other characters pretty soon!
I thought I make this post to brainstorm and discuss potential reworks for other characters too. I'm curious to hear people's opinion on who they think should get a rework, but for me, I think there's three characters who should be next in the list: Painwheel, Peacock and Cerebella. So when I talk about character rework, my goal here is to modernize their kit and bring them up to the standard of recent character releases. Their main gameplan and identity should be the same. Painwheel should remain a glass cannon, Peacock should remain a ranged character and Cerebella should remain a chunky bruiser.
1. Cerebella
We'll first start with the biggest sensation in the Cirque des Cartes herself. Cerebella is a bruiser with high health and attack stats, capable of dealing a lot of damage while keeping her health high. A lot of her moves are 'one-hit' moves that deals a huge chunk of damage and she has plenty of THROW based moves to be the main initiator in fights. Because of all these great baseline gameplay, her abilities tend to be more on the simple side and leverages her stats more than other characters.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
At the current moment, Cerebella is not played a lot that much. When she is played, players will often equip MERRY GO-RILLA (MGR), BATTLE BUTT, DIAMOND DROP and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. These moves tend to be the bread and butter of Cerebella sets because they are all one-hit moves (so less chances to activate signature abilities), very simple to combo with and deals A LOT of damage. MGR is without a doubt, the best move and is the main reason why anyone would use Cerebella at all. It is a command grab that can be followed with Battle Butt and Diamond Drop for insane damage. This move can also be looped by equipping two MGRs and using them both after one another. In the corner, you can use Merry Go-Rilla > Command Grab (resets her position) > Merry Go-Rilla > Battle Butt again and again until the opponent dies.
There is another way to play Cerebella that uses a lot more combo hits. This is a less popular gameplan because the payoff is really weak and unless you're trying to rack up combos with her (to activate an SA more often, for example), there's often very little reason to use this gameplan. This often involves using Cerebella's dash attack to throw the opponent to the far corner, wall bounce and then use PUMMEL HORSE to catch them, allowing you to reset your ground combo. This can then be followed up with a DIAMOND DYNAMO or EXCELLEBELLA for more multi-hit shenanigans. But again, the payoff to pull this off isn't great. It is pretty fun though.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Cerebella's abilities all revolves around THROWS (another reason why MGR is so good) and is very easy and simple. Truly a great character for new players! Her Character Ability staggers the opponent on a THROW BREAK which is really good for offense. Her Prestige Ability is a simple damage increase based on the opponent's health, which fits her bruiser-theme and her first Marquee Ability UPPER HAND is a simple yet effective way to keep the opponent's meter in check. Her second Marquee Ability is a less popular choice though and might be worth giving a second look...
CHARACTER FLAWS
The move that works with Cerebella already works really well. But there are plenty of other moves that are frankly, inferior versions of what she has. Her other special moves like BUTT SLAM, CERECOPTER and LOCK N' LOAD all knocks the opponent down (can't be followed up) and have effects poor effects. They also can't be used after MGR, a core move in Cerebella's toolkit. There should be a fair trade-off for using these moves like different sets of effects, but currently, they're all simply worse than Battle Butt which does everything they can't do. For her blockbusters, I think her BB3 are by far the weakest. Both provide her with buffs (one Armor, the other random) when defeating an opponent. One is a multi-hit THROW while the other is a lower hit count finisher. I don't think I've ever used either moves to defeat an opponent - there's just very little payoff to be gained.
Related to the above paragraph, her combat effects leaves much to be desired. Other characters can inflict more debuffs, gain more buffs, deal more damage, heal more health, and so on. I think given her stats and theme, this was intended. However, times have changed and I believe she needs compensatory buffs to be on par with the other characters. She can still remain simple while still capable of standing toe-to-toe with the rest of the cast.
The final flaw for Cerebella is her position in defense. Even though she has a high health stat, I doubt you will ever see a Cerebella in an opponent's defense. None of her Diamond variants are defense-oriented and her unique catalyst gives her Unflinching which is... ok. Aside from that though, the AI can't make use of her abilities that well either. All her abilities are THROW-based which is super easy to control by the player, but not so much by the AI. MGR isn't like Wulfshoot where the AI can spam it indefinitely. MGR can fail if the distance is not quite right. So most of the time, the defending Cerebella is standing there and not doing anything aside from blocking or attempts at a ground combo. While I don't think this is bad per se, I believe this is a place where a good SA can pick up the slack and cover up a character's flaws.
SUGGESTIONS
I'm going to provide broad suggestions and ideas here on how to improve Cerebella. I genuinely think her gameplay only needs small touches, even less than Big Band, and most of the focus should be on her abilities and move effects. She's not meant to be a combo engine so most of her moves can remain the same. That said, I think Butt Slam needs a deeper and closer look because that move is weird.
ABILITIES
With abilities, I mentioned that her second Marquee Ability could use a touch up since it has a very niche use case. Given her lack of presence defensively, this Marquee could be the preferred defensive ability to choose and staying true to the THROW-theme, perhaps it could be activated when the opponent THROWS her by granting her a defensive trait like direct healing or a defensive buff like Unflinching. Speaking of which, I think Unflinching is such a thematic defensive buff for her to have in her kit. Some of her variants can already gain it and her catalysts also provides it, so it's not too far out of reach. I believe there's room to buff her catalyst to provide some other kind of utility, if Unflinching is added in her core kit.
While I don't think her other MA needs any touch up, it does put a lot of focus on MGR to the point where every Cerebella would want to run MGR. Perhaps opening up another condition to activate it can help diversify her builds a bit more, such as a Charge Attack. I personally think Cerebella's charge attack is so epic, but is almost never used outside of Heavy Handed.
MOVE EFFECTS
This is the big one and where I think most of her rework should focus on. From a quick look on her variants, abilities and effects, there's a common theme of leveraging raw stats in different situations. She tends to rely less on buffs and instead has more direct bonus damage effects. Some examples of these traits:
1. Prestige Ability gets stronger when opponent has less health
2. Brain Freeze increases damage based on current health
3. Scare Giver draining direct health %
4. Diamonds are Forever deals increased damage when opponent is in the air
5. Toad Warrior deals increased damage when blockbuster is charged
6. Harlequin increased damage of special moves
Given her already high raw base attack (and health), I'd imagine these kind of combat effects would suit her more as a character. I came up with a few more that I could see added to her move kit. Here are some ideas:
1. Lock N' Load: Deal 25% bonus damage for each BUFF the opponent has.
Cerebella's version of an anti-buff tool. The more buffs the opponent has, the more damage it deals!
2. Cerecopter: On CRITICAL HIT, deal an additional 1% of the opponent's MAX HEALTH.
One of Cerebella's multi-hit moves (8 hits) and now has a better payoff in dealing direct damage.
3. Butt Slam: Deal 50% bonus damage when blocked.
It's a weird move but it has a lot of reach. I could imagine the AI using this from the other side to get close to the player. An alternative crazy idea would be to make this move unblockable when certain conditions are met.
4. Diamond Dynamo: On COMBO HITS higher than 10, deal an additional 2% of the opponent's MAX HEALTH per landed HIT.
The blockbuster version of Cerecopter. The original effect is fine, honestly, but now that we've got a lot more defensive options, a straight HP cut feels fitting for the times. It's 5 hits and fits into her alternative multi-hit playstyle. I'm honestly not sure about the math whether the 8% bonus damage per combo hit deals more or less, so there's room to tweak the numbers there.
5. Excellebella
I don't have a solid idea on how to change this move. It often whiffs against heavier defenders, so that could be improved. But in terms of effects, it could definitely be better. Stun is pretty redundant on Cerebella. It's also one of her moves that are multi hit and can't be followed with after. So it's meant as a finisher of some sorts. Maybe it's just Armor Break or increased damage? One idea would be to gain meter for every hit, allowing Cerebella to recharge her blockbusters faster (like Diamond Drop) and re-use this move again.
6. BB3s
Both blockbusters need new effects. Right now, there's no reason to use these moves at all. Diamond Drop, a BB1, is 10x better than these two moves because it's easy to charge, THROW-based and grants her sustain (Heavy Regen) for the same condition. One idea would be to grant her some base buff that lasts the whole fight when used. For example: Permanently increase Cerebella's base HP or ATK by 25% for the remainder of the fight. Another interesting idea is to have an instakill ability, similar to Annie's Photo Bop (feels fitting for Ultimate Showstopper).
2. Peacock
Next, we'll look at Peacock, our favorite ranger with plenty of bombs and moves that defy physics. Peacock excels at long-range fights and has very high damage and mobility to harass enemies from afar. She primarily relies on her special moves to deal heavy damage with effects that deal BLEED and ARMOR BREAK. Furthermore, she also has a support role and many of her variants have various teamwide support abilities to help out a fight.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
At the current moment, Peacock is primarily played in the bench. Variants like Sketchy, Prism Plumage and Pea Shooter are all great support variants that are often utilized for the buffs they provide in the back. While she can be played offensively, her gameplan is pretty linear and often involves the same play pattern.
Peacock uses a lot of special moves as her main damage output and her blockbuster serves as follow ups for openings or ability effects. IMPENDING DOOM is a great one to reset a ground combo while inflicting STUN for bomb shenanigans and ARGUS AGONY is really good to very quickly activate any kind of Projectile-based abilities, such as her Prestige Ability. BANDWAGON RUSHDOWN is another great blockbuster to follow up with high damage and ability to remove buffs.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Peacock's abilities are overall pretty good. Her Marquee Ability to reset specials or allow unblockable tag ins is really good for both offense and defensive purposes. Her Character Ability is pretty unique, allowing her to dip into the ground and come back up later, but its execution can be a bit difficult and is mostly not used. Her Prestige Ability charges super fast with a single Argus Agony, but the payoff isn't great unless you're playing a very specific playstyle.
CHARACTER FLAWS
The most direct comparison to Peacock is Robo-Fortune. Both are ranged characters but have significantly different properties. It's honestly really cool to have these two different sides of a ranged character. The main difference is that Robo-Fortune has a close-up playstyle and some of her moves pushes the opponent afar, allowing her to follow it up with her ranged moves. Peacock is more simple than that and her close-up combo game is much weaker.
I honestly think only Inkling have the luxury of taking advantage of all Peacock's kit because of her ability to inflict unblockable specials. She can spam specials from afar until the opponent dies since one of her bombs will invariably hit the opponent and deal massive damage. It's not without flaws though, the opponent can counter it by using a ranged blockbuster.
But where does that leave the other variants? Well, most variants will have to incorporate some blockbusters and get close to the opponent to deal any damage. This play pattern often involves Ground Combo > Impending Doom > Bomb Specials > Bomb Specials > Ground Combo > Argus Agony. Rinse and repeat.
Peacock has no way to be aggressive outside of certain abilities (Inkling's unblockable or Deal Breaker's GBreak), so most of the time you will have to turtle and wait for an opening before you can do anything. Her combo game is weak since she's meant to be a ranged character, but her bombs can easily be stopped by the opponent blocking. It makes her gameplan quite linear (which is why Deal Breaker's GBreak is so cool and fun).
SUGGESTIONS
Unlike Cerebella, these suggestions are going to be much shorter. I think Peacock don't have that much to change in terms of effects. One change I'd like to see though is her character ability, which is the most underutilized part of her kit. The Hole Idea is cool, but is very weak in execution (has anyone ever used it to dodge a blockbuster?). I propose a change to make the hit from this ability to be unblockable. It might be a bit crazy, but otherwise, there's very little reason to use it. At least this way, she can come in from afar to deal a few hits here and there and build up meter. It gives the player a proactive approach to playing her as well.
For her combat effects, she does have plenty of ARMOR BREAK which can be a bit redundant. So here I'm going to suggest some modifiers that I believe would help Peacock and her gameplan a bit more:
1. Death Mark: Inkling has shown that a straight unblockable special can lead to some crazy shenanigans. And Deal Breaker with GBreak provides a different flavor to what unblockables could look like with Peacock. So for the rest of the variants that don't have access to unblockables, I think having one of Peacock's move to inflict Death Mark, which increases damage from blocking opponents by 50% is a good alternative compromise. I personally think BANG, BANG, BANG! can inflict this debuff.
2. Disable Blockbusters: A huge counter to Peacock's gameplan is the opponent using a ranged blockbuster from afar to kill you. As a mild solution, if one of her blockbusters inflict this debuff, Peacock can have a few seconds shooting bombs from afar without worry. And paired with DMark, it can still deal significant damage, even when blocked.
3. Fatigue: Peacock can easily disappear with the Hole Idea, and surely chasing her around the map can be tiring! I think Fatigue could be another useful debuff to inflict. It reduces special move cooldown and tag in, but importantly, it can also inflicts STUN, giving Peacock that small tiny window to come in and deal massive damage with her bombs.
4. Immobilize: This is a big one but out of all the characters in the roster, this debuff fits Peacock's gameplan the most. Preventing the opponent from moving and getting bombarded by multiple bombs again and again feels like a fever dream. I'm actually surprised we don't have a Peacock variant that inflicts this yet.
Lastly, if there was a move that could use a tweak, I think it's LONESOME LENNY. I noticed that the only way to interact with Lenny and make him explode faster is by getting close to it and doing a ground combo on it. This defeats the purpose of Lenny since he's just going to explode on your face and kill you. You should be able to interact with him through specials and blockbusters too.
2. Painwheel
Finally, we'll look at Painwheel, the supposed "glass cannon" character that excels in damage while being frail in defense. She has plenty of ways to deal massive amounts of damage through DEATH MARK, ARMOR BREAK, BLEED and also ENRAGE. A unique ability to Painwheel is her ability to soar through the skies with her Character Ability.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
It's ironic that the "glass cannon" character is primarily used defensively in the competitive format. But this is not because of her moveset, which is very much offensive. Painwheel's combo game is pretty linear, often involves a ground combo followed by a DEATH CRAWL or BUER THRESHER to finish off the opponent. Out of the other two characters, I think Painwheel is the one with the most needed gameplan change to really emphasize her fantasy of being this berserker glass cannon character.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Painwheel's abilities are very solid. Her Marquee Ability is one of the reasons why she's a terror in defense alongside her catalyst, one of the best in the game. Her Prestige Ability is my favorite, giving her access to Guard Break which fits her character a lot. I think this modifier should be more prevalent in her core kit. But alas, this leads us to her Character Ability which, like Peacock, could use an adjustment; perhaps a bigger adjustment to fit her playstyle.
CHARACTER FLAWS
The biggest flaw is that her glass cannon fantasy is eclipsed by her defensive ability. This should have been the opposite. While her defenses have gotten a bit of a hit, her offense is still not on par. She does have a high base ATK stat, but a lot of variants have that as well, and sometimes gain additional bonus damage on top of it. Her kit, while offense-focused, is simply outdated and could use new effects to keep up with the standard times. Her gameplay is also too linear and she can't be as aggressive as other characters either.
SUGGESTIONS
First of all, the biggest suggestion is to further streamline her ability to fly in the air. Now that we have things like air dashes and moves that can work from the air, there is a lot of room here to make Painwheel a true menace. At the current moment, her character ability provides no direct value. Even Web Crawler, her recent variant that revolves around air shenanigans, prefer to not be in the air too much. I'll briefly point out which moves could use some air properties but I won't delve too much into them as I'm not aware of the limitations of incorporating that gameplay into the game.
MOVE EFFECTS
I'm honestly surprised Painwheel has so little ways to inflict ARMOR BREAK, despite being a berserker. Cerebella and Peacock has more reliable ways to inflict the debuff while Painwheel is restricted to a BB2. I personally think that Armor Break, Guard Break and Death Mark with a sprinkle of Bleeds should be the core debuffs Painwheel inflicts.
1. Cruel Lily
Not sure how to buff this move. The bleed effect is mediocre and the move itself is poor in execution. You have to be really close to the opponent and it knocks them down so can't be followed up. It's also only a measly 4 hit move. I think a gameplay adjustment to make this move combo-able would go a long way.
2. Gae Bolga Stinger: Inflict BLEED for 2 seconds on HIT.
This is a cool move that could be used to partially reset combos and having a guaranteed bleed effect feels like a better choice than an increased crit chance.
3. Pinion Dash: Has a 100% chance to land a CRITICAL HIT.
If there was any move that could use an increased crit effect, it's Pinion Dash. It's a high damage dealing special with no follow-up potential. Having it guarantee crit for massive damage on top of Death Mark in Painwheel's kit feels like an appropriate choice. In terms of gameplay, I'd like to see this move work from the air too like Filia's Hairball.
4. Violet Grudge: 25% chance on HIT to inflict GUARD BREAK
This move is one of Painwheel's worst. It only hits for 4 hits with a mere 10% chance to inflict Heavy Bleed. Like Pinion Dash, this could be another move that works in the air and could be buffed in terms of hit count and duration. As previously mentioned, I think GBreak should be incorporated into Painwheel's main kit to improve her aggressive playstyle that she currently lacks.
5. Hatred Install: 100% chance on HIT to grant ENRAGE for 10 seconds. UNBLOCKABLE if the opponent's health is higher than Painwheel's.
A move that would be useful to have in defense as a compensation to some of her previous nerfs. Might be too much here but thought I'd put it out there.
6. Fractured Reaper: 35% chance on HIT to inflict DEATH MARK for 10 seconds. Defense is ignored.
7. Buer Thresher: 25% chance on HIT to inflict ARMOR BREAK and GUARD BREAK for 10 seconds.
8. Buer Overdrive: Inflicts DEATH MARK for 15 seconds on HIT. Reduces the opponent's BLOCKBUSTER METER by 7% per landed HIT.
A slight buff to all three blockbusters to inflict new debuffs or for Fractured's case, an increased chance and ignore defense. The Buer blockbusters are some of her most commonly used ones and could use a bit of oomph.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We all know that Guest Stars are coming later this year, so a lot of work is probably focused on them. But it would be so awesome if the devs could squeeze in a character rework or two in addition. From this list, I think Painwheel will require the most development time to streamline her air gameplay. Cerebella also has some clunky moves that could use an update. Peacock is probably the lowest hanging fruit here and I don't see much of her moves being changed drastically, aside from minor tweaks and effects.
If you reach here, thank you for reading this long post! These are mere suggestions on what I think would be great for these characters. But I'm also interested to hear your thoughts and opinions too. What do you think of these suggestions? Do you have any of your own to share? Perhaps any other characters you'd like to see reworked (big or small)?
I thought I make this post to brainstorm and discuss potential reworks for other characters too. I'm curious to hear people's opinion on who they think should get a rework, but for me, I think there's three characters who should be next in the list: Painwheel, Peacock and Cerebella. So when I talk about character rework, my goal here is to modernize their kit and bring them up to the standard of recent character releases. Their main gameplan and identity should be the same. Painwheel should remain a glass cannon, Peacock should remain a ranged character and Cerebella should remain a chunky bruiser.
1. Cerebella
We'll first start with the biggest sensation in the Cirque des Cartes herself. Cerebella is a bruiser with high health and attack stats, capable of dealing a lot of damage while keeping her health high. A lot of her moves are 'one-hit' moves that deals a huge chunk of damage and she has plenty of THROW based moves to be the main initiator in fights. Because of all these great baseline gameplay, her abilities tend to be more on the simple side and leverages her stats more than other characters.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
At the current moment, Cerebella is not played a lot that much. When she is played, players will often equip MERRY GO-RILLA (MGR), BATTLE BUTT, DIAMOND DROP and DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER. These moves tend to be the bread and butter of Cerebella sets because they are all one-hit moves (so less chances to activate signature abilities), very simple to combo with and deals A LOT of damage. MGR is without a doubt, the best move and is the main reason why anyone would use Cerebella at all. It is a command grab that can be followed with Battle Butt and Diamond Drop for insane damage. This move can also be looped by equipping two MGRs and using them both after one another. In the corner, you can use Merry Go-Rilla > Command Grab (resets her position) > Merry Go-Rilla > Battle Butt again and again until the opponent dies.
There is another way to play Cerebella that uses a lot more combo hits. This is a less popular gameplan because the payoff is really weak and unless you're trying to rack up combos with her (to activate an SA more often, for example), there's often very little reason to use this gameplan. This often involves using Cerebella's dash attack to throw the opponent to the far corner, wall bounce and then use PUMMEL HORSE to catch them, allowing you to reset your ground combo. This can then be followed up with a DIAMOND DYNAMO or EXCELLEBELLA for more multi-hit shenanigans. But again, the payoff to pull this off isn't great. It is pretty fun though.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Cerebella's abilities all revolves around THROWS (another reason why MGR is so good) and is very easy and simple. Truly a great character for new players! Her Character Ability staggers the opponent on a THROW BREAK which is really good for offense. Her Prestige Ability is a simple damage increase based on the opponent's health, which fits her bruiser-theme and her first Marquee Ability UPPER HAND is a simple yet effective way to keep the opponent's meter in check. Her second Marquee Ability is a less popular choice though and might be worth giving a second look...
CHARACTER FLAWS
The move that works with Cerebella already works really well. But there are plenty of other moves that are frankly, inferior versions of what she has. Her other special moves like BUTT SLAM, CERECOPTER and LOCK N' LOAD all knocks the opponent down (can't be followed up) and have effects poor effects. They also can't be used after MGR, a core move in Cerebella's toolkit. There should be a fair trade-off for using these moves like different sets of effects, but currently, they're all simply worse than Battle Butt which does everything they can't do. For her blockbusters, I think her BB3 are by far the weakest. Both provide her with buffs (one Armor, the other random) when defeating an opponent. One is a multi-hit THROW while the other is a lower hit count finisher. I don't think I've ever used either moves to defeat an opponent - there's just very little payoff to be gained.
Related to the above paragraph, her combat effects leaves much to be desired. Other characters can inflict more debuffs, gain more buffs, deal more damage, heal more health, and so on. I think given her stats and theme, this was intended. However, times have changed and I believe she needs compensatory buffs to be on par with the other characters. She can still remain simple while still capable of standing toe-to-toe with the rest of the cast.
The final flaw for Cerebella is her position in defense. Even though she has a high health stat, I doubt you will ever see a Cerebella in an opponent's defense. None of her Diamond variants are defense-oriented and her unique catalyst gives her Unflinching which is... ok. Aside from that though, the AI can't make use of her abilities that well either. All her abilities are THROW-based which is super easy to control by the player, but not so much by the AI. MGR isn't like Wulfshoot where the AI can spam it indefinitely. MGR can fail if the distance is not quite right. So most of the time, the defending Cerebella is standing there and not doing anything aside from blocking or attempts at a ground combo. While I don't think this is bad per se, I believe this is a place where a good SA can pick up the slack and cover up a character's flaws.
SUGGESTIONS
I'm going to provide broad suggestions and ideas here on how to improve Cerebella. I genuinely think her gameplay only needs small touches, even less than Big Band, and most of the focus should be on her abilities and move effects. She's not meant to be a combo engine so most of her moves can remain the same. That said, I think Butt Slam needs a deeper and closer look because that move is weird.
ABILITIES
With abilities, I mentioned that her second Marquee Ability could use a touch up since it has a very niche use case. Given her lack of presence defensively, this Marquee could be the preferred defensive ability to choose and staying true to the THROW-theme, perhaps it could be activated when the opponent THROWS her by granting her a defensive trait like direct healing or a defensive buff like Unflinching. Speaking of which, I think Unflinching is such a thematic defensive buff for her to have in her kit. Some of her variants can already gain it and her catalysts also provides it, so it's not too far out of reach. I believe there's room to buff her catalyst to provide some other kind of utility, if Unflinching is added in her core kit.
While I don't think her other MA needs any touch up, it does put a lot of focus on MGR to the point where every Cerebella would want to run MGR. Perhaps opening up another condition to activate it can help diversify her builds a bit more, such as a Charge Attack. I personally think Cerebella's charge attack is so epic, but is almost never used outside of Heavy Handed.
MOVE EFFECTS
This is the big one and where I think most of her rework should focus on. From a quick look on her variants, abilities and effects, there's a common theme of leveraging raw stats in different situations. She tends to rely less on buffs and instead has more direct bonus damage effects. Some examples of these traits:
1. Prestige Ability gets stronger when opponent has less health
2. Brain Freeze increases damage based on current health
3. Scare Giver draining direct health %
4. Diamonds are Forever deals increased damage when opponent is in the air
5. Toad Warrior deals increased damage when blockbuster is charged
6. Harlequin increased damage of special moves
Given her already high raw base attack (and health), I'd imagine these kind of combat effects would suit her more as a character. I came up with a few more that I could see added to her move kit. Here are some ideas:
1. Lock N' Load: Deal 25% bonus damage for each BUFF the opponent has.
Cerebella's version of an anti-buff tool. The more buffs the opponent has, the more damage it deals!
2. Cerecopter: On CRITICAL HIT, deal an additional 1% of the opponent's MAX HEALTH.
One of Cerebella's multi-hit moves (8 hits) and now has a better payoff in dealing direct damage.
3. Butt Slam: Deal 50% bonus damage when blocked.
It's a weird move but it has a lot of reach. I could imagine the AI using this from the other side to get close to the player. An alternative crazy idea would be to make this move unblockable when certain conditions are met.
4. Diamond Dynamo: On COMBO HITS higher than 10, deal an additional 2% of the opponent's MAX HEALTH per landed HIT.
The blockbuster version of Cerecopter. The original effect is fine, honestly, but now that we've got a lot more defensive options, a straight HP cut feels fitting for the times. It's 5 hits and fits into her alternative multi-hit playstyle. I'm honestly not sure about the math whether the 8% bonus damage per combo hit deals more or less, so there's room to tweak the numbers there.
5. Excellebella
I don't have a solid idea on how to change this move. It often whiffs against heavier defenders, so that could be improved. But in terms of effects, it could definitely be better. Stun is pretty redundant on Cerebella. It's also one of her moves that are multi hit and can't be followed with after. So it's meant as a finisher of some sorts. Maybe it's just Armor Break or increased damage? One idea would be to gain meter for every hit, allowing Cerebella to recharge her blockbusters faster (like Diamond Drop) and re-use this move again.
6. BB3s
Both blockbusters need new effects. Right now, there's no reason to use these moves at all. Diamond Drop, a BB1, is 10x better than these two moves because it's easy to charge, THROW-based and grants her sustain (Heavy Regen) for the same condition. One idea would be to grant her some base buff that lasts the whole fight when used. For example: Permanently increase Cerebella's base HP or ATK by 25% for the remainder of the fight. Another interesting idea is to have an instakill ability, similar to Annie's Photo Bop (feels fitting for Ultimate Showstopper).
2. Peacock
Next, we'll look at Peacock, our favorite ranger with plenty of bombs and moves that defy physics. Peacock excels at long-range fights and has very high damage and mobility to harass enemies from afar. She primarily relies on her special moves to deal heavy damage with effects that deal BLEED and ARMOR BREAK. Furthermore, she also has a support role and many of her variants have various teamwide support abilities to help out a fight.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
At the current moment, Peacock is primarily played in the bench. Variants like Sketchy, Prism Plumage and Pea Shooter are all great support variants that are often utilized for the buffs they provide in the back. While she can be played offensively, her gameplan is pretty linear and often involves the same play pattern.
Peacock uses a lot of special moves as her main damage output and her blockbuster serves as follow ups for openings or ability effects. IMPENDING DOOM is a great one to reset a ground combo while inflicting STUN for bomb shenanigans and ARGUS AGONY is really good to very quickly activate any kind of Projectile-based abilities, such as her Prestige Ability. BANDWAGON RUSHDOWN is another great blockbuster to follow up with high damage and ability to remove buffs.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Peacock's abilities are overall pretty good. Her Marquee Ability to reset specials or allow unblockable tag ins is really good for both offense and defensive purposes. Her Character Ability is pretty unique, allowing her to dip into the ground and come back up later, but its execution can be a bit difficult and is mostly not used. Her Prestige Ability charges super fast with a single Argus Agony, but the payoff isn't great unless you're playing a very specific playstyle.
CHARACTER FLAWS
The most direct comparison to Peacock is Robo-Fortune. Both are ranged characters but have significantly different properties. It's honestly really cool to have these two different sides of a ranged character. The main difference is that Robo-Fortune has a close-up playstyle and some of her moves pushes the opponent afar, allowing her to follow it up with her ranged moves. Peacock is more simple than that and her close-up combo game is much weaker.
I honestly think only Inkling have the luxury of taking advantage of all Peacock's kit because of her ability to inflict unblockable specials. She can spam specials from afar until the opponent dies since one of her bombs will invariably hit the opponent and deal massive damage. It's not without flaws though, the opponent can counter it by using a ranged blockbuster.
But where does that leave the other variants? Well, most variants will have to incorporate some blockbusters and get close to the opponent to deal any damage. This play pattern often involves Ground Combo > Impending Doom > Bomb Specials > Bomb Specials > Ground Combo > Argus Agony. Rinse and repeat.
Peacock has no way to be aggressive outside of certain abilities (Inkling's unblockable or Deal Breaker's GBreak), so most of the time you will have to turtle and wait for an opening before you can do anything. Her combo game is weak since she's meant to be a ranged character, but her bombs can easily be stopped by the opponent blocking. It makes her gameplan quite linear (which is why Deal Breaker's GBreak is so cool and fun).
SUGGESTIONS
Unlike Cerebella, these suggestions are going to be much shorter. I think Peacock don't have that much to change in terms of effects. One change I'd like to see though is her character ability, which is the most underutilized part of her kit. The Hole Idea is cool, but is very weak in execution (has anyone ever used it to dodge a blockbuster?). I propose a change to make the hit from this ability to be unblockable. It might be a bit crazy, but otherwise, there's very little reason to use it. At least this way, she can come in from afar to deal a few hits here and there and build up meter. It gives the player a proactive approach to playing her as well.
For her combat effects, she does have plenty of ARMOR BREAK which can be a bit redundant. So here I'm going to suggest some modifiers that I believe would help Peacock and her gameplan a bit more:
1. Death Mark: Inkling has shown that a straight unblockable special can lead to some crazy shenanigans. And Deal Breaker with GBreak provides a different flavor to what unblockables could look like with Peacock. So for the rest of the variants that don't have access to unblockables, I think having one of Peacock's move to inflict Death Mark, which increases damage from blocking opponents by 50% is a good alternative compromise. I personally think BANG, BANG, BANG! can inflict this debuff.
2. Disable Blockbusters: A huge counter to Peacock's gameplan is the opponent using a ranged blockbuster from afar to kill you. As a mild solution, if one of her blockbusters inflict this debuff, Peacock can have a few seconds shooting bombs from afar without worry. And paired with DMark, it can still deal significant damage, even when blocked.
3. Fatigue: Peacock can easily disappear with the Hole Idea, and surely chasing her around the map can be tiring! I think Fatigue could be another useful debuff to inflict. It reduces special move cooldown and tag in, but importantly, it can also inflicts STUN, giving Peacock that small tiny window to come in and deal massive damage with her bombs.
4. Immobilize: This is a big one but out of all the characters in the roster, this debuff fits Peacock's gameplan the most. Preventing the opponent from moving and getting bombarded by multiple bombs again and again feels like a fever dream. I'm actually surprised we don't have a Peacock variant that inflicts this yet.
Lastly, if there was a move that could use a tweak, I think it's LONESOME LENNY. I noticed that the only way to interact with Lenny and make him explode faster is by getting close to it and doing a ground combo on it. This defeats the purpose of Lenny since he's just going to explode on your face and kill you. You should be able to interact with him through specials and blockbusters too.
2. Painwheel
Finally, we'll look at Painwheel, the supposed "glass cannon" character that excels in damage while being frail in defense. She has plenty of ways to deal massive amounts of damage through DEATH MARK, ARMOR BREAK, BLEED and also ENRAGE. A unique ability to Painwheel is her ability to soar through the skies with her Character Ability.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: MOVES
It's ironic that the "glass cannon" character is primarily used defensively in the competitive format. But this is not because of her moveset, which is very much offensive. Painwheel's combo game is pretty linear, often involves a ground combo followed by a DEATH CRAWL or BUER THRESHER to finish off the opponent. Out of the other two characters, I think Painwheel is the one with the most needed gameplan change to really emphasize her fantasy of being this berserker glass cannon character.
CHARACTER HIGHLIGHTS: ABILITIES
Painwheel's abilities are very solid. Her Marquee Ability is one of the reasons why she's a terror in defense alongside her catalyst, one of the best in the game. Her Prestige Ability is my favorite, giving her access to Guard Break which fits her character a lot. I think this modifier should be more prevalent in her core kit. But alas, this leads us to her Character Ability which, like Peacock, could use an adjustment; perhaps a bigger adjustment to fit her playstyle.
CHARACTER FLAWS
The biggest flaw is that her glass cannon fantasy is eclipsed by her defensive ability. This should have been the opposite. While her defenses have gotten a bit of a hit, her offense is still not on par. She does have a high base ATK stat, but a lot of variants have that as well, and sometimes gain additional bonus damage on top of it. Her kit, while offense-focused, is simply outdated and could use new effects to keep up with the standard times. Her gameplay is also too linear and she can't be as aggressive as other characters either.
SUGGESTIONS
First of all, the biggest suggestion is to further streamline her ability to fly in the air. Now that we have things like air dashes and moves that can work from the air, there is a lot of room here to make Painwheel a true menace. At the current moment, her character ability provides no direct value. Even Web Crawler, her recent variant that revolves around air shenanigans, prefer to not be in the air too much. I'll briefly point out which moves could use some air properties but I won't delve too much into them as I'm not aware of the limitations of incorporating that gameplay into the game.
MOVE EFFECTS
I'm honestly surprised Painwheel has so little ways to inflict ARMOR BREAK, despite being a berserker. Cerebella and Peacock has more reliable ways to inflict the debuff while Painwheel is restricted to a BB2. I personally think that Armor Break, Guard Break and Death Mark with a sprinkle of Bleeds should be the core debuffs Painwheel inflicts.
1. Cruel Lily
Not sure how to buff this move. The bleed effect is mediocre and the move itself is poor in execution. You have to be really close to the opponent and it knocks them down so can't be followed up. It's also only a measly 4 hit move. I think a gameplay adjustment to make this move combo-able would go a long way.
2. Gae Bolga Stinger: Inflict BLEED for 2 seconds on HIT.
This is a cool move that could be used to partially reset combos and having a guaranteed bleed effect feels like a better choice than an increased crit chance.
3. Pinion Dash: Has a 100% chance to land a CRITICAL HIT.
If there was any move that could use an increased crit effect, it's Pinion Dash. It's a high damage dealing special with no follow-up potential. Having it guarantee crit for massive damage on top of Death Mark in Painwheel's kit feels like an appropriate choice. In terms of gameplay, I'd like to see this move work from the air too like Filia's Hairball.
4. Violet Grudge: 25% chance on HIT to inflict GUARD BREAK
This move is one of Painwheel's worst. It only hits for 4 hits with a mere 10% chance to inflict Heavy Bleed. Like Pinion Dash, this could be another move that works in the air and could be buffed in terms of hit count and duration. As previously mentioned, I think GBreak should be incorporated into Painwheel's main kit to improve her aggressive playstyle that she currently lacks.
5. Hatred Install: 100% chance on HIT to grant ENRAGE for 10 seconds. UNBLOCKABLE if the opponent's health is higher than Painwheel's.
A move that would be useful to have in defense as a compensation to some of her previous nerfs. Might be too much here but thought I'd put it out there.
6. Fractured Reaper: 35% chance on HIT to inflict DEATH MARK for 10 seconds. Defense is ignored.
7. Buer Thresher: 25% chance on HIT to inflict ARMOR BREAK and GUARD BREAK for 10 seconds.
8. Buer Overdrive: Inflicts DEATH MARK for 15 seconds on HIT. Reduces the opponent's BLOCKBUSTER METER by 7% per landed HIT.
A slight buff to all three blockbusters to inflict new debuffs or for Fractured's case, an increased chance and ignore defense. The Buer blockbusters are some of her most commonly used ones and could use a bit of oomph.
CONCLUDING THOUGHTS
We all know that Guest Stars are coming later this year, so a lot of work is probably focused on them. But it would be so awesome if the devs could squeeze in a character rework or two in addition. From this list, I think Painwheel will require the most development time to streamline her air gameplay. Cerebella also has some clunky moves that could use an update. Peacock is probably the lowest hanging fruit here and I don't see much of her moves being changed drastically, aside from minor tweaks and effects.
If you reach here, thank you for reading this long post! These are mere suggestions on what I think would be great for these characters. But I'm also interested to hear your thoughts and opinions too. What do you think of these suggestions? Do you have any of your own to share? Perhaps any other characters you'd like to see reworked (big or small)?
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