Characters Umbrella Mega Mix - Suggestions Compilation

[SvenZ]

Salty

OLD SA 1 - Once per match, gain BLESSING and 3 stacks of ENRAGE for 5/7/10 seconds when falling below 35% HEALTH.

NEW SA 1 - Once per match, gain BLESSING when falling below 35% HEALTH. Each time Umbrella gains BLESSING she also gains Enrage for 5/7/10 seconds.


Notes - The number of Enrages gained is reduced when her health drops low. That's perfectly fine, as it was never the strength of this variant. It's the fact that SA2 makes throws have a 50% chance to apply bleed while benefiting from Enrage. Salty will now be able to more consistently gain Enrage by also equipping a Taunt. At max level, taunt grants 3 stacks of BLESSING, meaning also 3 stacks of Enrage for Salty. Persona Assistant will now also be a great addition to Salty, providing her with Blessing(and in our case also Enrage) every 20 seconds.
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Puddle Pirate

OLD SA 1 - Opponents lose 1 BUFF every 4/3/2 seconds while near a PUDDLE.

NEW SA 1 - Opponent BUFF DURATION is reduced by 2/3/4 seconds each time they splash in a PUDDLE.
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OLD SA 2 - While not RAVENOUS, Umbrella gains 3/4/5% HEALTH whenever an opponent loses a BUFF.

NEW SA 2 - While RAVENOUS, Umbrella gains 2/3/4% HEALTH whenever a BUFF expires or is removed from the opponent.


Notes - Current trigger mechanic requires you to waste your bobblin bubbles on blocking opponents or rely too much on under the weather. Unlike tears, puddles rarely stay for long on the screen and the effect is too slow. This may sound like a nerf, but it's more of a blurf. If the opponent has multiple buffs on, then they'll all disappear much faster. There are easy ways to chain multiple puddle splashes. Thanks also to @Kheul for bringing up her SA2, which works against SA1's set-up requirements. That being Umbrella must NOT be in Ravenous form. That's a total oversight, making this variant very awkward to play and fully benefit from. The change will make it so Umbrella ALWAYS gains health whenever a buff expires on the opponent, allowing her to recharge quite a bit of health. Values have been slightly reduced as a result
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Space Case

OLD SA 1 - While RAVENOUS, inflict DOOM for 15 seconds when an opponent's HEALTH drops below 25/35/50%. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.

NEW SA 1 - While RAVENOUS, Umbrella's THROW HITS have a 10% chance to inflict DOOM for 30/25/20 seconds. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.


Notes - This may also appear as a nerf on first glance since the Doom duration is longer, and in some edge cases it is. HOWEVER, right now it's quite easy to miss the Doom timing due to the Ravenous requirement. Not to mention that opponents can also just resist the debuff, making her SA1 practically none existent. Even when using an optimal build for gaining Ravenous asap, you may still end up missing the timing. The opponent Health requirement has been completely removed. Doom is valuable while the opponent has high HP and decreases with value for each % lost. You can't apply Doom at match start, but you'll still have the same timing window as now when facing the Point(1st) opponent and have significantly better opportunities to apply it vs the 2nd and 3rd opponent. Since Throws grant Hungurn meter, you can't stay permanently in Ravenous form to apply Doom without a thought, you'd still have to do some meter management and utilize moves that remove Hungurn meter.
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Wunderkind

OLD SA 1 - When reaching 3 or more stacks of POWER SURGE, the opponent loses 50% BLOCKBUSTER METER and suffers damage equal to 50/75/100% of Umbrella's ATTACK.

NEW SA 1 - When reaching 3 or more stacks of POWER SURGE, the opponent loses 20% BLOCKBUSTER METER and suffers damage equal to 30/40/50% of Umbrella's ATTACK.


Notes - What the hell is this nerf??? Well, it's actually a buff and fix for her. Right now, SA2 trigger explicitly when reaching 3 stacks of Power Surge, no more, no less. This means that you don't want Power Surge to last too long, so you can trigger the effect again. That entirely invalidates SA1's later ranks. With this change, each time you reach 3,4 or 5 stacks, you will proc the effect. Thus making you actually want the longer duration on Power Surge, so you can maximize the amount of times you proc SA2.
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Raining Champ​

OLD SA 1
- Umbrella starts the match with UNFLINCHING for 5/7/10 seconds and 2 stacks of permanent ARMOR. ARMOR is removed if Umbrella has no living teammates.

NEW SA 2
- Umbrella has 2 stacks of permanent ARMOR while she has living teammates. On match start and on tag-in, gain UNFLINCHING for 5/7/10 seconds.


Notes - People stick Raining Champ in the front just because of the Unflinching, and never get to benefit from the Final Stand. Having a Val is 9 times out of 10 always better, but Raining Champ's consistent application is still appreciated while at low HP and has niche synergies. With this change, Umby will also gain UNFLINCHING on tag-ins, thus removing the need to stick her on the front. This is both useful while as the point fighter, and as a backrow support. Considering she's a diamond, I think this buff is more than reasonable.

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Death Wish​

OLD SA 1 - Every 7th COMBO HIT landed on Umbrella or the opponent TRANSFERS up to 1/2/3 enemy BUFF(S) to herself and inflicts HEX for 10 seconds.

NEW SA 1 - Every 11th COMBO HIT landed on Umbrella or the opponent TRANSFERS up to 1/2/3 enemy BUFF(S) to herself and inflicts HEX for 10/12/15 seconds.


Notes - What a dumb variant. Without a doubt, the strongest variant in the entire game. The low combo count requirement is what makes her strong, making Precision variants like Hex Caliber and Vintage V unable to do anything. They may as well start with Hex applied on them at match start. I think 11 hits is perfectly reasonable, considering how combo heavy umbrella is, and how overloaded DW's kit is. Since people will cry about the change, the HEX duration is buffed. This nerf is needed as to also introduce more defense variety, instead of relying on DW spam

 

[Kheul]

I am not much of an Umbrella player so I could be wrong with my takes here.

Salty

[OLD SA 1] - Once per match, gain BLESSING and 3 stacks of ENRAGE for 5/7/10 seconds when falling below 35% HEALTH.

[NEW SA 1] - Once per match, gain BLESSING when falling below 35% HEALTH. Each time Umbrella gains BLESSING she also gains Enrage for 5/7/10 seconds.

Good and synergistic buff.

Puddle Pirate

[OLD SA 1] - Opponents lose 1 BUFF every 4/3/2 seconds while near a PUDDLE.

[NEW SA 1] - Opponent BUFF DURATION is reduced by 2/3/4 seconds each time they splash in a PUDDLE.

I don't use moves that utilizes puddles, so I pretty much have no experience with this gameplay style. I guess puddle hits removing buffs directly would be too generic so you took this path, understandable.

So puddles still occur when the bubble is blocked yeah? The original concept sounds somewhat interesting because it offers a different gameplay style. Instead of just spamming bubble and puddle hits it gives you an option to stall for buff removal. Her SA2 makes no sense though, if she is a bubble and puddle based unit when is she not going to be ravenous?

I think her original concept has some potential for a semi-stalling type of gameplay, as she can access to her combos even after a Burst if opponent lands on a puddle. This gameplay style works with your suggestion too.

I think her SA2 should be adjusted as well.
While RAVENOUS, Umbrella DRAINS 3/4/5% HEALTH whenever an opponent loses a BUFF.

Space Case

[OLD SA 1] - While RAVENOUS, inflict DOOM for 15 seconds when an opponent's HEALTH drops below 25/35/50%. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.

[NEW SA 1] - While RAVENOUS, hitting an opponent with a CHARGE ATTACK while they're at or below 30/40/60% HEALTH inflicts DOOM for 15 seconds. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.

DOOM units are really tough to balance correctly. I honestly don't feel like this change is going to do anything, same reason with Wind Stalker.

Wunderkind

[OLD SA 1] - When reaching 3 or more stacks of POWER SURGE, the opponent loses 50% BLOCKBUSTER METER and suffers damage equal to 50/75/100% of Umbrella's ATTACK.

[NEW SA 1] - When reaching 3 or more stacks of POWER SURGE, the opponent loses 25% BLOCKBUSTER METER and suffers damage equal to 30/45/60% of Umbrella's ATTACK.

Really, really nice buff now she sounds interesting enough for me to actually use.

Raining Champ​

[OLD SA 2] - While Umbrella is alive, teammates gain HASTE and FINAL STAND for 10 seconds every 30/25/20 seconds.

[NEW SA 2] - While Umbrella is alive, every 30/25/20 seconds teammates gain HASTE and FINAL STAND for 10 seconds, and Umbrella also gains UNFLINCHING for 10 seconds.

I don't think this adjustment is enough for her to actually take a spot in a decent rift defense.

But I think she can be used more flexibly as an offensive/support. You can potentially tag her in with UNFLINCHING and she is definitely gonna take the turn from the opponent even when it is not the start of the battle. Dunno how you would utilize it but yeah...

Death Wish​

[OLD SA 1] - Every 7th COMBO HIT landed on Umbrella or the opponent TRANSFERS up to 1/2/3 enemy BUFF(S) to herself and inflicts HEX for 10 seconds.

[NEW SA 1] - Every 11th COMBO HIT landed on Umbrella or the opponent TRANSFERS up to 1/2/3 enemy BUFF(S) to herself and inflicts HEX for 10/12/15 seconds.

HEX duration can stay as it is honestly, but I understand the highly possible community backlash. Good change.

 

[SvenZ]

Thanks for the feedback!

I don't use moves that utilizes puddles, so I pretty much have no experience with this gameplay style. I guess puddle hits removing buffs directly would be too generic so you took this path, understandable.

So puddles still occur when the bubble is blocked yeah? The original concept sounds somewhat interesting because it offers a different gameplay style. Instead of just spamming bubble and puddle hits it gives you an option to stall for buff removal.

I think her original concept has some potential for a semi-stalling type of gameplay, as she can access to her combos even after a Burst if opponent lands on a puddle. This gameplay style works with your suggestion too.

Yes, Puddles will still appear after a Bobblin Bubble attack. The problem is that they're way too easy to detonate. You can play around and stall, but it's trickier to set-up compared to Summar Salt, who has an identical SA (but with some damage added).

Her current version is most definitely usable, however has the following downsides:
- Can only be applied at medium to close range (close range is preferable)
- If the opponent doesn't block, they get hit and launched, and subsequently land on the puddle, thus triggering it. So you never get to trigger SA1.
- Can't effectively utilize it in combos.

My reason for Puddle hits not removing buffs are the following:
- It would be too powerful, as you can chain up to 4(technically 5) vs all characters, and they deal very good damage.
- We won't have any form of scaling for the SA.
Ultimately, 3/4/5 seconds may be better, and I'm biased since I use them a lot. But it would be more fair balance wise for a Silver to not have such easy access to buff removal. Bubble Umby is already a counter to Buff characters, so it would be too much.

Her SA2 makes no sense though, if she is a bubble and puddle based unit when is she not going to be ravenous?

I think her SA2 should be adjusted as well.
While RAVENOUS, Umbrella DRAINS 3/4/5% HEALTH whenever an opponent loses a BUFF.

She can gain Hunger meter quite easily, so it's intentionally added to promote not using those moves. For example, you have 2 combo extenders. One is Salt Grinder, grants a lot of Hungern meter and does pretty solid damage. The other is Wish Maker. No changes to Hungern meter and does not damage. Applies some useful debuffs, but its mostly great utility for Ravenous form. There are several other counterpart moves like that.

I think the Drain would be too strong. Bubble Umby heavily counter buffs based variants. A Dahlia that gains Haste and 5 Regen stacks would take roughly 36% Max health damage from a Bubble combo. Add the Drain and that's another 30% HP. Would definitely be too good.

But you brought up something important for SA2. The ability works right now when the opponent "LOSES" a buff. I should rework that to when a Buff Expires. That means that the healing will occur regardless of SA1's effect. Too strong maybe?

DOOM units are really tough to balance correctly. I honestly don't feel like this change is going to do anything, same reason with Wind Stalker.

It sure is. I originally envisioned any damaging attack while the opponent is below 50% HP to trigger the effect. That could make her too annoying however. The other option was to have a few more thresholds where the Doom could trigger. In theory, a 15 sec Doom sounds amazing, but in practice it's not that great.

I don't think this adjustment is enough for her to actually take a spot in a decent rift defense.

But I think she can be used more flexibly as an offensive/support. You can potentially tag her in with UNFLINCHING and she is definitely gonna take the turn from the opponent even when it is not the start of the battle. Dunno how you would utilize it but yeah...

That's fair. My main goal was to encourage people to use her as a support, instead of a point on defense. It's not a huge buff, but something to give her a little more umpf.

HEX duration can stay as it is honestly, but I understand the highly possible community backlash. Good change.

I think so too. We don't wanna upset the 3 shiny umby whales too much though

 

[Kheul]

I think the Drain would be too strong. Bubble Umby heavily counter buffs based variants. A Dahlia that gains Haste and 5 Regen stacks would take roughly 36% Max health damage from a Bubble combo. Add the Drain and that's another 30% HP. Would definitely be too good.

Yeah, I was thinking of using her with more a of a defensive statline, like Masked Menace. But I totally forgot about the Slime damage itself. That would definitely be overtuned.

But you brought up something important for SA2. The ability works right now when the opponent "LOSES" a buff. I should rework that to when a Buff Expires. That means that the healing will occur regardless of SA1's effect. Too strong maybe?

It would be nothing new for an Umbrella, she is already really good at healing innately, I don't think it would be too strong.

Her current version is most definitely usable, however has the following downsides:
- Can only be applied at medium to close range (close range is preferable)
- If the opponent doesn't block, they get hit and launched, and subsequently land on the puddle, thus triggering it. So you never get to trigger SA1.
- Can't effectively utilize it in combos.

You are right, it is just that I envisioned Puddle Pirate as a staller which is an unorthodox gameplay style for umby instead of a normal Umbrella with long combos when I saw her current SAs.

She can gain Hunger meter quite easily, so it's intentionally added to promote not using those moves. For example, you have 2 combo extenders. One is Salt Grinder, grants a lot of Hungern meter and does pretty solid damage. The other is Wish Maker. No changes to Hungern meter and does not damage. Applies some useful debuffs, but its mostly great utility for Ravenous form. There are several other counterpart moves like that.

I appreciate the info on hungern meter, but there is one thing I don't understand. Her current SA2 works when she is not RAVENOUS. Can you even make both her SA1 and SA2 work harmoniously?

 

[SvenZ]

I appreciate the info on hungern meter, but there is one thing I don't understand. Her current SA2 works when she is not RAVENOUS. Can you even make both her SA1 and SA2 work harmoniously?

Apologies, I've misunderstood you. Yes, you're absolutely right that it's counterproductive. The easiest non-meter way to set up puddles is with Bobblin Bubble, and by doing so you quickly end up in Ravenous state. SA2 should definitely be changed to work while you're in that form and not the opposite as it is right now

 

[SvenZ]

Made updates to the following SAs

Space Case

OLD SA 1 - While RAVENOUS, inflict DOOM for 15 seconds when an opponent's HEALTH drops below 25/35/50%. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.

NEW SA 1 - While RAVENOUS, Umbrella's THROW HITS have a 20% chance to inflict DOOM for 30/25/20 seconds. DOOM is removed if Umbrella TAGS OUT or is defeated.

Doom duration is now longer, however you always have a chance of applying it when using a throw while in Ravenous form. Her multi-hit Throws all grant Hungurn meter, so the application won't always be guaranteed. You are however given the opportunity to apply Doom much sooner and thus better utilize it. You also won't have to worry about annoying timings. This version might still be balanced at 15 seconds, but due to its consistency I think 20 is fine. Overall this will require Space Case to have a good mix of Hungurn manipulating moves and multi-hit throws, opening for a lot more creative build paths

Puddle Pirate

OLD SA 2 - While not RAVENOUS, Umbrella gains 3/4/5% HEALTH whenever an opponent loses a BUFF.

NEW SA 2 - While RAVENOUS, Umbrella gains 2/3/4% HEALTH whenever a BUFF expires or is removed from the opponent.

SA 2 has been adjusted to compliment SA1 much better. Values have been reduced due to the ease of use

 

[Kheul]

Doom duration is now longer, however you always have a chance of applying it when using a throw while in Ravenous form. Her multi-hit Throws all grant Hungurn meter, so the application won't always be guaranteed. You are however given the opportunity to apply Doom much sooner and thus better utilize it. You also won't have to worry about annoying timings. This version might still be balanced at 15 seconds, but due to its consistency I think 20 is fine. Overall this will require Space Case to have a good mix of Hungurn manipulating moves and multi-hit throws, opening for a lot more creative build paths

Salt Grinder does 11 hits. If you have no hungern meter, on average 8 hits of it are considered ravenous. She can do a single combo at corner which lets her use Salt Grinder back to back with no hungern meter at both times. 80% of the time she will get the doom with first Salt Grinder anyways. This would be better than Xeno and in some cases preferable over Masked Menace. Perhaps a bit too good due to how easy to apply DOOM and how hard it is to get rid of it.

 

[SvenZ]

Salt Grinder does 11 hits. If you have no hungern meter, on average 8 hits of it are considered ravenous. She can do a single combo at corner which lets her use Salt Grinder back to back with no hungern meter at both times. 80% of the time she will get the doom with first Salt Grinder anyways. This would be better than Xeno and in some cases preferable over Masked Menace. Perhaps a bit too good due to how easy to apply DOOM and how hard it is to get rid of it.

You're right. My thought process was that you get a bit higher proc chance with single hit throws, and depending on gameplay you're not necessarily always at Ravenous. But it's quite easy to set yourself up at 0% Hungern Meter. I'll reduce it to 10% proc chance. Might have to go even lower, but that would be best determined via playtesting

 

[SvenZ]

Wunderkind SA2 remake values have been reduced:
- Blockbuster Meter reduction: 25% -> 20%
- % of Wunderkind's damage: 30/45/60 -> 30/40/50%

Notes - the more I play Wunderkind, the more I think the proposed version will be busted, so values need to be slightly adjusted.
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Raining Champ proposal switched from SA2 to SA1.

Old proposal - > Add Unflinching to Umby when SA2 triggered.
New proposal -> Add Unflinching on both match start and on tag-in (addition to SA1)

Notes - Many variants have far, far easier access to Unflinching, so having it on tag in is not problematic. Even more so given Umby's slow tag-in, that can be simply blocked. This will better improve her niche at not having to be the point fighter. That option still exists, but players will now have more incentive to place her in the back, and thus benefit the whole team from her Last Stand.