Some ideas for changing or buffing Star Breaker

[Astral Mage]

So, after playing as Star Breaker exclusively for a pretty long time, I've come to the conclusion that she's just not all that great as she's made out to be. The hyper isn't very effective for her, her attacks are largely dependent on luck (in many ways), and a lot of things can easily work against her. Her passive being a very large factor in why she's so difficult to win with.

I've collected a few ideas for making her better, but it's still a work in progress. I'd like to hear some thoughts and feedback, please.

Link to the document I made [docs.google.com]

[GF202020]

I wouldn't change Star Breaker's passive, but I would introduce new cards that one could build a Star Breaker deck out of, namely cards that cost alot of stars so Star Breaker could burn them and not have to worry about giving them to her foes in battle, and perhaps a movement perk cards that costs alot of stars. That would be ideal to help her out.

I agree with reworking the hyper like you suggested but the passive perks to the existing hyper and the added perks to the proposed 'Full Gear' are still too OP for my liking, then again I come from a Fightan background so anything that seems OP I throw a red flag on.

My Suggestions:

CURRENT HYPER:
-Make it variable cost, able to use at any norma, will take all your stars.
-the base number of bombs it places on the field is 4, for every 50 or so stars, you gain one bomb ontop of that.
-the bombs have the bomberman style radius, but do more damage, like say 3 or 4
-the bombs can now kill foes and you gain 2 wins for each kill

FULL GEAR:
-Lasts one battle
-Norma 4 required
-Takes all stars, For each 50 stars taken, you gain +1 to each stat
-if you win (which you will with how this card stacks you up), you will gain an additional 2 wins plus the wins you would normally have gotten.

I think this would help Star Breaker out WITHOUT suddenly making her into Overpowered Breaker.

[Astral Mage]

Originally posted by GF202020:

I wouldn't change Star Breaker's passive, but...

I think a positive passive would be nice for her, especially this one. It would reduce her reliance on random dice rolls late-game and allow her to do consistent and deadly damage that may be required to win the game.

Hyper-wise, the hyper suggestion would be interesting for sure if they had a radius in which they were effective, rather than a flat one panel explosion. Doing damage like that would allow her to damage opponents and let them eventually run into a bomb, allowing her to get the KO she was working towards if their health is lowered enough. I'm not sure what you mean by bomberman-style radius, though.

As for Full Gear, that's more of like a really weird hybrid of Nath's hyper ability with Tomomo (Normal)'s high norma requirements. You get less stats for more of the cost, for one battle. While getting +4 wins would be really nice, I would rather her not blow her entire stock of stars on one battle, and be left extremely vulnerable afterwards.

[Sham!]

i dont find star breaker less oppressive than most bullies tbh, and honestly you focus your analisys too much on other players when she's perfectly free to just nuke chickens and gulls on encounter panels, robo balls survive more often i guess but you arent forced to chase other players

if anything you are often free to just do your game since most characters and players usually just dont want to beef with starbo

i'd just give her a +1 movement with no cards held to make it easier for her to do stuff after burning thru all her resources

[CarThief]

Hm, wouldn't say she is as "opressive" as other bullies, either. Her "opression" quickly falls to pieces when you realize she'll be 3rd/4th in the end vs the star-gatherers. Compare utter BS units like Yuki, who can both bully as good as Starbo and win via Stars, now those are (almost) as opressive as Poppo.

I suppose the main issue is that Starbo looks strong on paper, deluding and tricking many people into thinking she's powerful and increasing her presence as she gets picked more commonly then other units. And since she has only one way to win - mindless violence - she spoils the atmosphere of any game she invades.

But yeah... Skipping the psycology of it all... She's utterly terrible at her job. That said, if she was any better she might be truly too powerful. It's a thin line that shouldn't be crossed, people hate her as-is.

Best i could think of is, maybe... Always dealing 1 or more damage with Invisible Mines, and getting 1-2 wins from Mine KO's should they kill a unit that's already on 1 HP.
Or perhaps have Mines do 3 damage and give one Win on KO. If need be there could be an additional +1 or +2 Mines per Hyper too given they would lose their effectiveness in return. (Now i think of it, doesn't Co-op already do this? Seems easy to implement it that way into Versus too then.)

Her mines have always been a design flaw. Setting your opponents to 1HP sounds nice on paper for a unit like her, but in reality it never happens when Starbo can take advantadge of it. They'll likely be on the other side of the map, and they will likely have chance to heal or be slain by NPC's or the Boss, or other players.

[F IAaP n]

The tricky part about Star Breaker is that the position she's in is usually extreme: either she falls behind everyone or she completely dominates the match – this is no less because of matchups.
If you buff her in a direct way, those specific matchups would become even more oppressive (heh) for other players. Making her less matchup-reliant would in turn change her way too much.

[Astral Mage]

Originally posted by CarThief:

Hm, wouldn't say she is as "opressive" as other bullies, either. Her "opression" quickly falls to pieces when you realize she'll be 3rd/4th in the end vs the star-gatherers. Compare utter BS units like Yuki...

Yeah, the issue I feel with her lies in her bombs and combat ability generally falling off around Normas 3-4 and effectively eliminating her from the game if she doesn't get those last few wins. But I feel that the line should be crossed in making her more effective at her job, as I've heard that characters in need of buffs or changes receive one if there is sufficient reason to justify it. If being unable to win because your kit is ineffective at it's job isn't a reason to look into changing a character, I wouldn't know what is.

Her mines are absolutely a problem, being nearly useless as a hyper due to the random placement, and fact that they usually trigger more than half the map away and in rapid succession, allowing players to clear away your mines with no effect outside of the animation at 1hp. If the mines had the ability to both reduce your HP to 1, and KO you if you're at a low amount of health (2 preferably so you can't just heal out of it.), and benefit her by awarding her a KO or two, they could become exponentially better at assisting her in getting those last few KOs.

Ideally, I'd like to do that and make her unfavorable matchups less of a brick wall to overcome through the additional passive suggestion, so she's not suffering against units like Fernet or Roboballs when she needs the wins.

Originally posted by F IAaP n:

The tricky part about Star Breaker is that the position she's in is usually extreme: either she falls behind everyone or she completely dominates the match – this is no less because of matchups.
If you buff her in a direct way, those specific matchups would become even more oppressive (heh) for other players. Making her less matchup-reliant would in turn change her way too much.

I've had games like this, and I can say this. 5% of the games I play with Star Breaker, a meager 5% if I'm being very generous, will be extremely in her favor. As a friend of mine put it, "The stars and planets need to align for her to have a good game like that." and I would completely agree with him. There is simply too much going against her for her to have an "average" game, so I don't feel like she would be dominating matches as often as you might think, or winning them, at least.

While matchups against Star Breaker might be considered oppressive, the opposite is overwhelmingly more true. Playing Fernet, for example, might make Star Breaker less of a threat to you. But for her, she just automatically lost an entire player to consider attacking unless she has a very lucky roll, or manages to reduce her to 1hp and take advantage of it.

Other bullies suffer less from unfavorable matchups because they have access to Star Norma, allowing them to be simultaneously oppressive to other players AND an easier path to victory. Star Breaker doesn't have that luxury, and as a result, an unfavorable matchup is far more devastating for her and drastically reduces her chances of victory.

[Meneluma]

Burn stars to get a temp Rec bonus.
It's something neat some games that feature lives and respawns get right, letting you burn a life to get back at not full HP instead of respawning like usual, if you're confident you can make it worth it.

Her Rec is bad for the amount of fighting you are doing, Kae is more optimized for that, but if you could pay the premium on demand to get up with 3HP or something to Dash that Aru that just robbed you because you had 1 HP...

She's very prone to opportunist backstabbing and a bad Rec meaning who did it will get far away by the time you get back up.
This would feel more of trying to make it work without doing major rehauls like the norma restriction, similar to how the double movement dice for Sug 46B turned out to be.

[CarThief]

Yeah, there's no middle ground with Starbo, either you dominate or you get dominated. That said, 90% of the time the latter occurs. But it happens almost never that i see a Starbo barely win or barely lose.

Hm, and basically a change of... Invisible Mine: "If your HP is above 2, reduce it to 1. If HP is 2 or less, become KO'd and give the Trap-setter 1 Win." Yeah, that'd work.

All this talk of REC kinda makes me think of a weird idea, but it's probably terrible. Additional passive: "REC becomes the inverse of your current level (Min. of 2)." So, you start out at 5 (the inverse of level 1, on a 1-5 scale), and on level 2 get 4 REC, level 3 get 3 REC, etc.
That or Starbo could've gotten a passive to say, reduce REC if KO'd by bosses by 2 (or more). Considering those tend to be the main hurdle for her. Or if a Boss was active on the field.

But those are just raw ideas, personally i'd stick to the mines ideas. The mines are currently conceptually flawed anyway.
If anything they only serve to add more stars to one player as there's a 2/3 chance another player will take that oppertunity to kill the 1HP player, or if they've been slain by a NPC, then there's a 3/4 chance a enemy player gets the looted stars from said NPC.

[DrifT]

I'll just give her Campaign Tomomo stats (except REC), or give her Hyper a YukiD-ish passive which now KOs them and gives her 1-2 wins if stepped on, or a new card (probably max 1 due to President's Privilege) that enables both norma until level up, but at a heavy cost (she has voicelines for star norma anyways, although unused). But even that she's nowhere close to needing an emergency buff/change.

[Astral Mage]

Originally posted by ソラ:

I'll just give her Campaign Tomomo stats (except REC), or give her Hyper a YukiD-ish passive which now KOs them and...

Campaign Tomomo stats, +2/0/+1 (and 5 rec) with 6hp, would be pretty strong a buff and make her sturdier to play as, but I'm not sure whether a raw stat boost would be the correct way to change her and make her easier to play as/with.

That would be really cool, the hyper change specifically, so that it would award her wins and KOs the opponent if people landed on it. Two wins would be preferable, because one win does make it feel a little on the weaker side for a Hyper, and feels like very little progress in terms of wins.

A max 1 card like enables both Normas at a heavy cost would be interesting. If it were a gift card, I could see it having a potential downside (like halved star gains, or slightly reduced stats on defense and evasion) and allow players (or Star Breaker) to chase both Normas at a price. An event card with a stock effect on everyone like that would be cool too, so their next Norma works towards either. It would probably be a Norma 3 card though.

I wouldn't say she needs an emergency buff nor change, but I would like to see something about her change or become buffed in the future so the problems she encounters while playing the game are far less severe than they do feel right now.

[CarThief]

Yeah sorry but mines that...
-Are invisible and thus not avoidable.
-Are numerous (3+ per hyper) and easily spammed.
-Cause instant KO.
-Give 1-2 Wins...
Would be so godamn blatantly OP she may as well be the new Poppo.

I mean c'mon, in theory that's atleast a easy +-5 Wins per match from Mines alone. Combined with the wins she accuires typically from combat, that almost guarantees her victory! That's waaaaaay too much.

And i'd highly discourage having any card allow Starbo/Cuties/etc to swap normas. If they're restricted to one type, it's ussually for a damn good reason. Just look at how blatantly overpowered Yuki is, given she has Starbo's stats but no such restrictions to pursue Wins only. Or Manager, who despite his no-card drawbacks is amazingly strong solely because he can do Star Normas.

That said, it'd be a nice card to have if it worked on other units who aren't norma-restricted. Nath would love to have that for when she has more Wins then Stars or visa versa due to her self-harming hyper. (Man, still think Nath could benefit from having the passive "If your Wins are equal or higher to your current Level's Win Norma requirements, automatically swap Norma to Wins." It'd really help her not be stuck after flubbing and spending all stars on a failed AOW.)

I don't see Tomomo stats making a difference for Starbo, though. I mean, realistically it's only +1 HP and EVD. A measely difference. She'll still suffer from the same problems, yet her bloated stats will trick even more people into thinking she's "good" or "powerful", yet she'll be anything but that.

---

Hm, well, since Starbo's mines are the biggest factor in her defeat, given that if she spams them, people will lose HP, and likely either be KO'd by another player or by a NPC, whom will then be killed by another player, resulting in a very rich enemy player and less time for Starbo to gain Wins...

The mines should probably do something to counter this issue, by causing KO's themselves or otherwise ensuring the "star balance" is kept divided between players to give her as much time as possible to grind Wins.

Just some possible ideas:
-Invisible Mine (trap): If unit has more then 2HP, set their HP to 1. If unit is at 2HP or less, KO them. Edit: And give wins according to what they would've given in battle. (Though this doesn't fix the issue of weakened units giving stars to enemy players.) [Modification to the Invisible Mine trap card. Does not alter main hyper.]

-Invisible Mine (trap): Deal 3 DMG to unit. If this effect KO's them, give the trap-setter one Win. (Has a better chance of not crippling but instead KOing units.) [Modification to Invisible Mine trap card. Does not affect main hyper.]

-Sticky Bomb (trap): Apply 3(?) stocks of "Sticky Bomb" to unit. Sticky Bomb [stock effect]: If the unit fights the player who placed this Trap, explode, set HP to 1 and remove all stocks of Sticky Bomb. Reduce stock by 1 on start of every turn. [Modification to Invisible Mine trap card. Does not affect main hyper.]

-Invisible Mine (trap): Unit loses 5 Stars X Level. [Modification of Invisible Mine trap card. Does not alter main hyper.]

-Mine: Acts akin to Big Bang Bell, but instead KO's units instantly and grants wins equal to what they would've given from battle KO's. Cannot gain wins from KOing yourself with this. [Modification from original hyper. Visible face-down trap card.]

And that's the best that comes to mind right now...

[Astral Mage]

Originally posted by CarThief:

Yeah sorry but mines that...
-Are invisible and thus not avoidable.
-Are numerous (3+ per hyper) and easily spammed.
-Cause instant KO.
-Give 1-2 Wins...
Would be so godamn blatantly OP she may as well be the new Poppo.

I don't know about them being "Blatantly OP". Invisible KO bombs that cause a harmless KO should be fine, since you're not losing any stars from landing on one. They would serve, if anything, to slow down the game for players by knocking them out of commission for an amount of time and award Star Breaker 1-2 wins.

Let's compare and contrast, hyper-wise, these two very similar hypers. Krila's "Plushie Master" vs Star Breaker's (modified) Star Blasting Fuse(s?)

Plushie Master:

• Is a 10 star, norma 2 hyper
  
• Sets 3-5 random panels with visible trap cards
  
• Deals 2 damage to a unit instantly, debuffs their attack by -2 infinitely, until their next battle.
  
• Heals user for 1hp per trap triggered.

Star Blasting Fuse:

• 30 star, Norma 3 hyper
  
• sets a variable amount of invisible bombs, 3-5.
  
• Would simply instantly KO an enemy, not resetting their stars or affecting their stats.
  
• Awards user wins (1-2)

One is optimized for a rather deceptively tanky character, which it overwhelmingly cripples players and benefits the player, all for a rather exceptionally low price.. One is optimized for a bully who runs out of steam to collect wins past a certain point, and helps her collect them while benefiting only her, for an average hyper's cost and requirements.

For the solutions you suggested, the first one is pretty much a "what if they trigger two back to back" and that'd be alright if it awarded Star Breaker 2 wins for the two bombs used. Second one would effectively cripple the enemy more than usual, but possibly end up being similar to the current problem if other players are capable of capitalizing on it. Third suggestion wouldn't directly help her at all, and Mine is essentially a Big Bang Bell but for KOs.

Gaining wins from her bombs would be a great help, for sure. Especially around Norma 4 when it is virtually impossible to get any more wins due to the presence of the Boss, and the only other option would be minigames like Fish a Fish, through Battlefield, or players.

[76561199164758702]

Her hyper is useless, she could had get a similar hyper like Maynie or anything that made her attack go higher since norma wins.

[CarThief]

Eh, if it's 2 Wins per Mine that's kinda insane. Just 3 kills would be an easy 6 Wins. And on average Starbo is quite able to get 12 Wins from forceful combat alone. Throw the Wins from Mines on top and it's a reliable 18+ Wins every match. Very dangerous and powerful, especially with more then 3 KO's from Mines.

I'm questioning if even 1 Win per Mine is a safe addition, as that feels like - if spammed - it could easily draw 5+ kills and thus 5 Wins on average per match. She has no breaks on Star spending, so it's pretty acceptable to assume Starbo can pull off two Hypers per match on average. Unless the total of mines spawned is altered to be (slightly) less then before, in which case it'd be a fair drawback.

The first suggestion doesn'y rely per se on triggering two mines. It's unfortunately quite common someone's weakened to 1-2 HP from external events. Especially with 3HP units about. Though it seems i forgot to add the detail of how it should give 2 Wins on KO.

And i don't think idea #2 is going to be as catastrophic to the "star balance" as her current effect, as again, plenty of units can be weakened or may not even have Max HP over 3 (always KOing units like Peat).
The third idea you might've misunderstood. It's like tying a Invisible Mine to their back and if Starbo manages to reach them in time, it'll blow up and make them a prime target for her. Otherwise, the "star balance" remains uninterrupted and they won't suffer KO. That said, it could do more then be an explosive strapped to them.

I wonder, what if...
-Sticky Bomb [Trap]: "Apply 3 stocks of "Sticky Bomb" to the target.
Sticky Bomb [Stock Effect]: When facing the unit who applied this effect in combat, explode and set your HP to 1, remove all stocks of Sticky Bomb.

If KO'd in combat by another unit, explode and deal 2 DMG to your enemy, clear all stocks of Sticky Bomb. If the enemy is KO'd by the explosion, the unit who applied this effect gains the Wins.

Remove 1 stock of Sticky Bomb on the start of every turn. If KO'd also clear all stocks of Sticky Bomb."

So instead of Invisible Mines, "Sticky Bombs" are deployed (which remain invisible). This would keep people on their toes lest they give Starbo accidental wins. This could give any number of wins, a 1 from a exploded bird, 2 from a player, 3 from a Boss, etc. There is no star-steal effect attached to bomb-KO's, though KO'd units "carrying" the bomb still lose stars accordingly.

---

Though this reminds me of one other issue Starbo has... How being KO'd basically turns her (or a NPC) into a money pinata, disrupting the "star balance" quite easily too.

Perhaps if she had an additional passive? "If KO'd, enemies only recieve 1/4 of the stars you've lost." (If they steal 100/200 from Starbo, Starbo loses those 100 Stars, and the enemy only takes 1/4 of that amount: 25.) Or something like that.

[F IAaP n]

Make her gain 1HP (like Krila) every time a 1 HP character lands on an Invisible Bomb.
That's it from me.