Zuzuska's WATER Diamond Evaluation

[Zuzuska]

SWOOSH SPLASH
(thats the sound water makes right?)

This list of Water Elemental Fighters will judge what the 3 BEST choices for Diamond evolution are. There will also be 3 DECENT picks, and then the other fighters that struggle to hold onto practicality.

Possible Water Element Diamonds:
Bad Ms Frosty, Brain Freeze, Cold Stones, Dead Of Winter, Hack n' Splash, Icy Hot, Idol Threat, In Denile, Just Kitten, No Egrets, Rage Appropriate, Regally Blonde, Robocopy, Silent Kill, Sundae School, Temple Tyrant, Twisted Mettle, .Understudy and Untouchable.

Spoiler: Here's The List!

Best Choices:

Spoiler: Brain Freeze

Does… Does it surprise you to see her cheeky smile on the top of this list? Cause it really shouldn’t. Cerebellas are gifted with great natural stats; so being a Natural Gold Bella makes it even better. Her SAs make her absurdly tanky to multi-hit combos (Almost all BB3s and beyond) and it increases her damage output. Her BBs, throws and staggers give her great battle control while granting damage output as well. She’s an absolute unit and she becomes an even better one with Diamond Evolution.

Spoiler: She already knows she's at the top

Spoiler: Cold Stones

Cold Stones has a stunning level of efficiency for a natural bronze. He performs amazingly well and benefits tremendously from Diamond Evolution. Using BBs and Special Moves along with Hype Mode, you can perform an alarming amount of throws. For every throw, he has a chance to inflict a stun that seemingly lasts ages. Dealing 50% bonus damage during that stun allows him to dish out lots of damage while also keeping his enemy stunlocked for large periods of time.

Spoiler: Silent Kill

Silent Kill was a tough choice for me to place this high up and I’m sure some will have opposition to this ranking. However, my reasoning is that Silent Kill has a niche against self-buffing fighters. She’s capable of going toe to toe with Untouchables, Resident Evils and in some cases Armed Forces. If you’ve got 3 Water Essences or don’t have a strong Doublicious she’s a decent character to break you through those defensive walls. Diamonding her would allow her to get past the misfortune of possessing low natural Valentine stats.

Decent:

Spoiler: Regally Blonde

Regally Blonde cuts into the decent area of this list simply because of the proficiency of meter control she wields. She can dish out loads of damage by just doing Natural Gold Parasoul things, while simultaneously holding back enemy BB3s with her SA. Diamonding RB will allow her to keep up with more enemies using higher damage output.

Spoiler: Hack N' Splash

Controversial, but fair to say she deserves a chance at glory. Hack N’ Splash has the highest base ATK stat in the entire game. *Tied with Buzzkill* Her SA is honestly terrible. However, MF’s Marquee Enrage buffs allow her to dish out loads of damage without regard for her SA. Diamonding her would be a pretty decent pick if you don’t have any of the above characters.

Spoiler: No Egrets

No Egrets does surprisingly well on her own; hence, No Egrets. She disables BBs frequently enough to stall out any possible BB3s and she can sometimes isolate enemies until they are K.Oed. Her damage is meh, but with enough Crit Rate % and her MA2 with Crit Damage per tear she can shred enemies in the right circumstances. Diamonding her would be a fair choice.

WARNING:
She does have massive issues in certain PFs and against certain fighters that punish you for inflicting debuffs.

Sub Par: Untouchable, Twisted Mettle, Understudy, Dead Of Winter, Bad Ms Frosty, Rage Appropriate, Robocopy, In Denile, Idol Threat, Temple Tyrant, Myst-Match, Just Kitten, Sundae School and Icy Hot

As of now, the rest of the detailed descriptions are complete.

Feedback/comments can change descriptions and placements though!
(Check out all the detailed descriptions here!)

This is an Offensively biased list, focusing on continuing high streaks and efficiency.

A Defensively biased list may come out in the near future in anticipation of Rift Battles.

Let me know what you think! I would love to be convinced on if rankings need to be altered or mixed around.

Wind is next.

 

[cappatacus]

I'd say this is a pretty solid list, and I appreciate your awareness of bias. Having said that, though, I feel like this should be seperated into two lists: offensive and defensive.
While Cold Stones will certainly hold up better in high streaks, for a defense team, you may prefer to have Dead Of Winter, a fighter praised for her defensive capabilities. I feel this is especially relevant with the soon to come Rift Battles, which the devs hinted to focusing on defensive characters.
Also, I haven't played with these fighters yet, but I feel like Untouchable and Hack and Splash could rank higher. I know from experience how annoying Untouchable is, and H&S has a potentially powerful percent based attack.
Good job on this though, and I'm looking forward to the detailed list!

 

[theLoneskull]

This is definitely interesting to see. Too bad most of these gals are either useless or very niche. I don't think Twisted Mettle belongs here tho.

Spoiler: She already knows she's at the top

Oh Bella. You and your cheeky smile.

 

[Veeko]

Not sure I agree with Twisted Mettle but other than that, solid list. Also, like cappatacus said, some of the sub-par fighters are excellent defense choices and so, would also make excellent diamonds... just not for offense teams. Diamond Untouchable is a nightmare on a defense team, but diamond Cold Stones is dead weight. Maybe need a separate list for defensive diamonds lol
Hack may also deserve more credit for offense. I don’t know, I haven’t used her, but just since she has the same base attack as Buzzkill and is also able to inflict hp% based damage. Is her SA just too unwieldy?

 

[Zuzuska]

I appreciate the feedback! Here are some responses to posts:

I'd say this is a pretty solid list, and I appreciate your awareness of bias. Having said that, though, I feel like this should be seperated into two lists: offensive and defensive. While Cold Stones will certainly hold up better in high streaks, for a defense team, you may prefer to have Dead Of Winter, a fighter praised for her defensive capabilities. I feel this is especially relevant with the soon to come Rift Battles, which the devs hinted to focusing on defensive characters.

Ahhhhhh! Yes! The mention of Rift Battles completely slipped my mind! I guess I'll begin some work on a Defensive Diamond Version

This is definitely interesting to see. Too bad most of these gals are either useless or very niche. I don't think Twisted Mettle belongs here tho.

Twisted Mettle is a very controversial decent pick. However, I do believe granting her a bit more survivability and damage would benefit her. It would allow her to inflict more bleeds and bleeds are the way to go as of right now. I argue that she would simply perform much better than her competition in very high number streaks. If she was to be ranked lower, than who from the water roster would you suggest to take her place?

Hack may also deserve more credit for offense. I don’t know, I haven’t used her, but just since she has the same base attack as Buzzkill and is also able to inflict hp% based damage. Is her SA just too unwieldy?

That's a tough one I had to choose as well, I'm not sure if Hack N' is good or not because I have very minimal experience with Ms. Fortune in general. However, from what I can tell of her SAs; I don't believe she's very reliable as a offensive fighter. Firstly, there has to be a debuff active on the enemy for you to deal the % HP damage. So, you would have to perform the well-timed block and retaliate accordingly. *Hopefully the enemy doesn't have a BB3 at that point, otherwise you may end up dead.* Secondly, you would have to riskily remove the head AND land a critical hit with it while the debuff is active. The issue is that this whole process can be very deadly, but it has way too many steps that could go wrong in a multitude of ways. Ms. Fortune is extremely delicate in the first place, and this variant requires you to have considerable crit rate for the HP% damage, while also timing blocks and risking getting BB3ed to death in the process. I do believe her kit is simply too unwieldy in comparison to other semi-brainless fighters that perform the same way; if not, better. I.E., Twisted Mettle deals the same HP% damage with her considerable amount of bleeds and she's very straightforward and simple. Compared to the complicated kit of Hack.

 

[Ryouhi]

Gotta throw in a good work for my girl Untouchable

Not sure if she'd be a top pick for a Diamond, but the advantage of evolving her is that you're getting rid of her biggest weakness: Her relatively low attack. Mine is level 30-something now and already has surpassed my Ultraviolent's Attackrating of 6000 (though UV will still do more damage with her SA ofc) which makes her much more useful as an offensive pick, whereas she'd usually fall off too hard damage wise to use as a carry.

She offers some good safety measures on top of that with her chance of nullifying damage, high base health and unflinching.

Of course evolving a fighter that's already good on the offensive will still trump her, but as a diamond she gets a good dose of both Defense and Offense, which makes her quite useful in my opinion

 

[Nefarious]

When you mentioned the diamond Rage Appropriate, was it my Rage that beat you?

 

[fanghoul]

I personally went with Diamond Silent Kill and she's... okay. She's at about 10k fs, so the stats aren't obviously higher than they were as a gold, but even just using her normally in the 20s of prize fights it feels very obvious that she's dealing less damage than other options.

I think that she might be really good on defense though, with ICU giving her heavy regen, and the annoying ability to revive downed characters. Maybe not as good as Surgeon General, but still a good option there.

Definitely would have gone with Brain Freeze if that had been an option though.

 

[Zuzuska]

Gotta throw in a good work for my girl Untouchable

Hmmm, alright. I'm rolling the list over and rethinking some placements. Thanks for the feedback

When you mentioned the diamond Rage Appropriate, was it my Rage that beat you?

M- m- maybe...

 

[Tom Kulczewski]

Solid list! Really eager to see a defensive one someday

 

[theLoneskull]

Twisted Mettle is a very controversial decent pick. However, I do believe granting her a bit more survivability and damage would benefit her. It would allow her to inflict more bleeds and bleeds are the way to go as of right now. I argue that she would simply perform much better than her competition in very high number streaks. If she was to be ranked lower, than who from the water roster would you suggest to take her place?

If Twisted Mettle was ranked lower, I would've said Hack n' Splash. But I see others had the same idea
(Also, I was late, nuuuu)

 

[Zuzuska]

If Twisted Mettle was ranked lower, I would've said Hack n' Splash. But I see others had the same idea
(Also, I was late, nuuuu)

Yeah, it appears this is the way the list is going to stay until further notice Twisted Mettle has been shoved downwards by the fact that she performs relatively the same even as a gold. So diamonding her would be kind of a waste of essence.

 

[Veeko]

You know it always bothered me how few great offensive water fighters there were. I was really hoping for something special out of Hack, but man, that SA. My guess when they posted the video of her was that her SA2 was going to inflict random debuffs to already debuffed targets- like the thousand plagues modifier? Instead we get a fighter with great stats but a very situational, hard to use ability. As opposed to Buzzkill whose SA is just “kill stuff very fast.” Maybe they’ll consider reworking her? “Take chip damage and then make yourself easier to hit” is just... counterintuitive for a glass cannon.
By the way that Understudy edit on the detailed list is honestly terrifying

 

[fanghoul]

You know it always bothered me how few great offensive water fighters there were. I was really hoping for something special out of Hack, but man, that SA. My guess when they posted the video of her was that her SA2 was going to inflict random debuffs to already debuffed targets- like the thousand plagues modifier? Instead we get a fighter with great stats but a very situational, hard to use ability. As opposed to Buzzkill whose SA is just “kill stuff very fast.” Maybe they’ll consider reworking her? “Take chip damage and then make yourself easier to hit” is just... counterintuitive for a glass cannon.
By the way that Understudy edit on the detailed list is honestly terrifying

Yeah, Water's sort of an odd man out in the elements. Fire and Dark have good offense. Wind and Light are strong on defense. Wind also has some really good offensive characters. Water is the opposite, and doesn't really shine in either area (aside from Brain Freeze who tries to compensate by being good at both)

Edit:
Maybe that's Water's weakness, is that characters are doing a "Why not both offense and defense?" and aren't really good at either then. Twisted Mettle, Dead of Winter, Rage Appropriate all have aspects of being better on defense, and then the second part of their SA tries to also make them deal more damage. Which isn't super useful, because the best defense is running out the timer, while the best offense doesn't depend on you getting heavily pummeled first.

 

[cappatacus]

Yeah, Water's sort of an odd man out in the elements. Fire and Dark have good offense. Wind and Light are strong on defense. Wind also has some really good offensive characters. Water is the opposite, and doesn't really shine in either area (aside from Brain Freeze who tries to compensate by being good at both)

Edit:
Maybe that's Water's weakness, is that characters are doing a "Why not both offense and defense?" and aren't really good at either then. Twisted Mettle, Dead of Winter, Rage Appropriate all have aspects of being better on defense, and then the second part of their SA tries to also make them deal more damage. Which isn't super useful, because the best defense is running out the timer, while the best offense doesn't depend on you getting heavily pummeled first.

I always wondered why water characters were always so lackluster - thanks for putting it into words.

Yknow, they even did this with the SA change for Understudy by granting her bonus damage + armour. Wonder if any of these characters will really land eventually?

I mean, DoW and Brain Freeze aren't bad. However, Winter's bonus damage doesn't serve her well and Brain Freeze wouldn't be good without her natural high stats.

 

[fanghoul]

My previous statement that Silent Kill as a diamond is pretty mediocre has to be reevaluated based on the new Rift Battles. Her ICU marquee and the ability to remove other people's buffs is pretty invaluable in the Rifts, which act much more like a really hard daily event than a high level prize fight.

I wonder if there's other water element characters that might be good in rifts, but not otherwise, because being able to survive weird match modifiers thrown against you, and only against you, is now more of a valuable thing.

Just Kitten seems like she might be a candidate. Also, on defense, I've found she's a real pain. Not the worst, but if you're going for clean wins for high rift points, her evade can really wreck your day.