Impressions on Mei and Natsumi

[Essence]

so hows everyone going about with these 2?

[Jon Shoes]

Buff Mei.
4 Rec

[Dimension Tripper!]

Originally posted by Zuraleon:

Buff Mei.
4 Rec

I was thinking about this too, but it's actually easy to get "Red&Blue" so I don't think she needs a buff

[Essence]

I feel like natsumi is starbreaker's salvation

[CrazyIvan]

I feel like Natsumi's Hyper is a bit uninspired as it's basically just a better version of her passive. At higher levels it seems like you won't really gain much from it in practice, especially at level 5 where a lot of characters don't even have that much HP to heal including Natsumi herself. Optimally you'd pay 25 stars at 1 HP to gain 4 HP getting 20 stars back and then you need to atleast heal another 2 HP for it to even gain you stars. You also have to bear in mind that you're healing other players so even if you get more stars you're still helping other people out.

The Hyper should have done something more interesting with her passive; maybe like double her healing for a round with her passive giving her stars for each point healed instead of each player or teleporting people to the same square, just something that would make it a bit more interesting. Having +1 defense so that she benefitted a bit more from the healing effects herself would have probably been nice too.

Mei seems fine to me, her Hyper is pretty strong considering how cheap it is and how low the level requirement is especially if she has Red & Blue. The gains from it are ridiculous if you ever manage to get in a position to KO 2 players which doesn't happen too infrequently with players usually stacking up on one of the home tiles at atleast one point in the game.

[mage.goo]

Getting RnB as Mei pretty easy most of the time unless your opponent is one of those people that bring the likes of Star-Blasting Light or Pres/Prin Privilege.
But her hyper just seems counter-productive since realistically, it would only be used when you're attacked by others. Considering that she's the type that likes to assert dominance over others with superior stats from RnB, that doesn't happen very often.

Natsumi's passive is just underwhelming. If you want to trigger it reliably, you need to initiate battle, but her -1 ATK can be dodged pretty easily.
And the star reward is so meager it's not even enough to recoup the cost of Party Time when everyone's at level 5 right after an Air Raid.
Shadowing a tank is a fun experience though, but I feel like most of my rewards came from the candy rather than the passive's star reward.
And it feels like her hyper's a tad too hard to profits from. You need to fully use your heal on a char (read:yourself) just to get even with the cost, but her -1 ATK and her passive is a big obstacle when you try to profits from healing others.
Using LDS is meaningless since the reward exactly recoup the cost, and Cloud of Seagull is unreliable and really hurts when it hits you.

Dunno though, maybe that's mostly on my part since I play both semi-aggresively

[Juno Brier]

Haven't tried Mei yet.

Absolutely love Natsumi. Regardless of how good it actually is, the whole "randomly attack people just to heal them" thing is fun.

[risbolla]

Originally posted by Dimension Tripper!:

Originally posted by Zuraleon:

Buff Mei.
4 Rec

I was thinking about this too, but it's actually easy to get "Red&Blue" so I don't think she needs a buff

or you could pick sherry and have red&blue permanently and also 5 hp and a 3 card hand cap instead of a 2 card cap

[Essence]

Originally posted by mage.goo:

Getting RnB as Mei pretty easy most of the time unless your opponent is one of those people that bring the likes of Star-Blasting Light or Pres/Prin Privilege.
But her hyper just seems counter-productive since realistically, it would only be used when you're attacked by others. Considering that she's the type that likes to assert dominance over others with superior stats from RnB, that doesn't happen very often.

Natsumi's passive is just underwhelming. If you want to trigger it reliably, you need to initiate battle, but her -1 ATK can be dodged pretty easily.
And the star reward is so meager it's not even enough to recoup the cost of Party Time when everyone's at level 5 right after an Air Raid.
Shadowing a tank is a fun experience though, but I feel like most of my rewards came from the candy rather than the passive's star reward.
And it feels like her hyper's a tad too hard to profits from. You need to fully use your heal on a char (read:yourself) just to get even with the cost, but her -1 ATK and her passive is a big obstacle when you try to profits from healing others.
Using LDS is meaningless since the reward exactly recoup the cost, and Cloud of Seagull is unreliable and really hurts when it hits you.

Dunno though, maybe that's mostly on my part since I play both semi-aggresively

Yeah i feel like natsumi is better off with atleast 0 for Atk

[Shade]

Mei seems solid enough. While her hyper is somewhat situational, getting Red and Blue is easy enough and gives her plenty to work with.

Natsumi doesn't seem bad either, necessarily, just a bit... uninteresting. The stars gained from her passive are almost completely inconsequential - the interesting part is that it also heals herself, making it fairly easy to keep stalking a specific player as long as their Atk isn't too high.
Her hyper on the other hand is a bit more practical. Not only can it turn a pretty good profit (especially with President's Privilege), it also doubles as a way to heal yourself in an emergency even if you end up losing some stars in the process.


That said, with the Halloween Event going on, trying to make any judgements regarding balance is pointless. The candy system is pretty fun, but it does change the balance quite a bit since it floods the game with stars. Barely any of the games I've played today lasted past chapter 20.

[F IAaP n]

Regarding Natsumi's passive effect, what cards also give you stars aside from Dinner?
Forced Revival and Sealed Guardian Brutal Prank and Pures, maybe? Has anyone tested?

[CrazyIvan]

Originally posted by mage.goo:

But her hyper just seems counter-productive since realistically, it would only be used when you're attacked by others. Considering that she's the type that likes to assert dominance over others with superior stats from RnB, that doesn't happen very often.

I wouldn't say it's exactly counter-productive, if you have both RnB and the Hyper then you gain from both if someone chooses to attack you. This can deter people from wanting to attack you, which means you're more likely to have the advantage of attacking first. It makes her more powerful in more situations, which in my opinion makes her much stronger overall. Remember that you're only likely to Hyper a couple of times a game so it doesn't matter too much if a good situation doesn't come up that often.

The only way it's really counter-productive is if you lose RnB while you still have your Hyper, but for this to happen will have probably required you to opt into a losing fight, which isn't that likely if you have RnB already and have the sense to not attack someone when you are low HP. If someone else has chosen to attack you when you were low that probably means they've been trailing you for a bit, which means you will have probably had a chance to use the Hyper.

[Draelios]

Haven't played much with them, but so far I like them. Mei's pretty strong, easy to buff and actually benefits from deck destruction strategies.
Although I seriously fear the inevitable moment Tsih (or Sherry) gets her hand on her Red & Blue and proceeds to shatter the universe.

As for Natsumi, the first thing I thought was "meh", but once I realized her passive heals herself as well I started enjoying her stalker playstyle and good survivability. I'm also thinking about all the possibilites involving Sealed Guardian or Forced Revival, and she'll definitely make for a great character if/when coop comes back.

By the way, a question: does Natsumi's passive trigger when standing with Kiriko or with koed units? I assume she will only heal herself and not the other (and gain no stars), but I'm curious.

Lastly, I'm convinced the pets clearly give you a hidden luck bonus. Always bring them.

[mkjioz]

Mei - a swingier sidegrade of Peat/Sherry. She's a character that suffers extremely from opening hand luck. Charity can also potentially ruin her chances of getting Red and Blue back after a death in the midgame. Her White Christmasher can be a very powerful deterrent, but it can only be activated generally right after an opponent has attacked you. In that case there's clear risk of just getting KOed first. Having your hyper and no Red and Blue is also not a great situation as you need to dump your hyper which is significantly harder to use well In base form. 4 HP with Peat stats and no downsides is great, but Mei can get very screwed by certain things and her own hand luck. However she is probably harmed the least by the presence of hand destruction. Gift Exchange though can be very crippling while super buffing an opponent. If given a hand of useless expensive cards, Mei may very well be forced to passively star farm at her base stats due to no other options.

Overall, she's something like a high roll character who has a seemingly low requirement, but can be forced into real struggles depending on the hand she gets.

Also I'm miffed they're giving Mei a method to gain extra wins at no penalty while YukiD still has that awful passive.

Natsumi - an interesting, but very match-up dependent character. If you're in a lobby with a person who mains Starbo or any other positive attack character, her intended harassment playstyle is just asking to get punched in the face. With her -1 attack she's extremely unlikely to get a KO as the vast majority of opponents are out of possible KO enrage at full HP which her passive helps keep players at.

Her hyper is similar to PFY, potential for massive gains, but very dependent on the state of other players. The theoretical best scenario is Play of the Gods into Sealed Guardian. However outside of that you're waiting for two players to severely damage each other, but not die.

The main thing that holds Natsumi back like all characters with star creating abilities is the crummy statline. She wants to harass, but if she were harassed herself, she is at a hard disadvantage while not being able to gain from it. Her harassment is also very weak due to the -1 attack. There are very few battles of attrition she can even potentially win due to the fact she heals the opponent. She also heals herself, but in general she risks more damage than what she can potentially deal. So you follow a tank and just do it for the stars. However while you almost certainly do 1 even if you roll a 5 due to their +2 defense, you can potentially get chunked by their 5 in return.

Overall, I believe they understatted her like all star creators which is what keeps the majority of them hard to play. Her biggest advantage I would say is the fact she essentially has 8 personal puddings. But bringing in more healing cards has anti-synergy with her passive and hyper.

[CrazyIvan]

Originally posted by mkjioz:

Overall, I believe they understatted her like all star creators which is what keeps the majority of them hard to play. Her biggest advantage I would say is the fact she essentially has 8 personal puddings. But bringing in more healing cards has anti-synergy with her passive and hyper.

I think what you say here is pretty spot on, which is why I suggested in an earlier post that she'd really benefit from having +1 defense to help her take more advantage of her healing. She has nothing to stop a stronger combat character from just harassing her and killing her in as little as 1 or 2 combats making her healing somewhat redundant.

[mage.goo]

Originally posted by Sonic Phantom:

I wouldn't say it's exactly counter-productive, if you have both RnB and the Hyper then you gain from both if someone chooses to attack you. This can deter people from wanting to attack you, which means you're more likely to have the advantage of attacking first. It makes her more powerful in more situations, which in my opinion makes her much stronger overall. Remember that you're only likely to Hyper a couple of times a game so it doesn't matter too much if a good situation doesn't come up that often.

I can accept this.
As much as I want to say that RnB is a better deterrence, her hyper is still a deterrence and not like the deterrence can't stacks. Though I guess the meta still hasn't settled in yet for this to actually deters people.

Originally posted by mkjioz:

Her hyper is similar to PFY, potential for massive gains, but very dependent on the state of other players.

I just want to say that PFY still forces other player to draw 1 card even if their hand is full, so you can make it not too dependent on other's state.
Getting 50-70 stars from a 30 stars hyper is still pretty good after all, not to mention the higher chance of getting another PFY from that.

Meanwhile, Natsumi's hyper limits the heal done on a player, so you can't manipulate it like PFY.
Now that I think about it, Natsumi is the counter for those high-hp pseudo-tank, ain't she? Can deal more than 1 dmg against them while constanly healed and can take advantage of them even if they're far away with her hyper.
Though there's only like, 4 char that falls into that category, and they ain't exactly popular. And not even particularly hard to go against.