Is it me or is Natalie underpowered?

[TheDapperDoge]

I've played this game a little bit, and after unlocking all characters and playing with them all equally, I must say Natalie is very weak. Her healing is helpful, but her damage is lacking.
I have upgraded her ice attack equal to the others and against an enemy with hardly and magic defence, it does (take, no give) half of every one else's single targeted attacks.

I just feel she is only useful as a healer and doesn't help with damaging enemies in her spare turns.

Thoughts? Opinions?

[Balsion]

The general consensus seems to be that Natalie is not balanced around dealing damage at least in higher difficulties, in Normal and below her damage should be sufficient to get the job done. Meanwhile in Hard/Epic she mostly focuses on support - 7th heaven is really powerful and single handedly takes care of most of your buffing needs, at the same time, some of her staves have unique and powerful unleashes/effects allowing her to double your damage with Enchant/Invisible (Elder's Wisdom,Obsidian Staff, Dark Tooth), inflict Virus (Beholding Eye) or inflict massive debuffs (Kaladanda).

That said, Natalie's Dark and Holy damage is still pretty viable regardless - she's the best user of Black Hole and can deal ludicrous burst damage with it, while with some setup her Judgement will tear certain enemies apart (for any other element you're better off using either Matt or Lance for damage though).

[TheDapperDoge]

It does seem a bit situational, but I do see what you mean by viable damage with dark and holy enemies. I still believe her other elemental abilities should be a bit more useful and less situational, even though they do well in those situations.

[Genius Destroyer]

Is she underpowered?..maybe BUT she makes up for it by being able to cast the same spell every turn apart from Judgement and..the AOE Dark spell)

i use her more than Lance since nearly every skill he has ..has a cool down

[TheJazMaster]

Originally posted by The Broken Overlaa(ERROR):

i use her more than Lance since nearly every skill he has ..has a cool down

Lance is the single best damage dealer in most situations if you learn how to play around his cooldowns. Simply use another one of his many abilities or put him in backup for one turn.

[EagleWiz]

Judgement can hit very hard, and Black Hole can be an effective AOE, but other then that her damage is rather weak.
That said, direct damage alone can only get you so far.

[AyyLmao]

Yeah, the classic AoE balancing problem. It has been proven to be a pretty sensitive issue, as there has been lots of discussion and balance changes being thrown around in the Discord server about it. Ironically, for being the main AoE character in EBF4, Natalie has received much, much more in terms of buffing compared to any other characters since the beta in order to allow her to become competitive; the changes included general buffing to all of her weapons, huge buffs for her dark/holy skills, and raising her base Magic to become 7.1 (which is even higher than Matt's 6.6 base Attack!)

Of course, all those balance changes being thrown around still had to follow a certain philosophy on balancing strengths and weaknesses with AoE, and this is my understanding of that:

* Natalie is designed to be the benchmark for AoE balancing: She has very high base Magic with generally competent STAB weapons, and her AoE does decent damage while not having any drawbacks at all. She is supposed to cater to the more inexperienced players who play on lower difficulties and simply need an easy way to wipe trash mobs; on Hard+ her lack of power will become more apparent, and more optimized builds are to be required.

* Lance and Anna both have considerably more powerful AoE in terms of base power and side effects (debuff and status effects, respectively), which can be further enhanced with a 100% offense boost from a buff oriented Natalie/Matt build. This comes at the cost of Lance's AoE having a rather nasty CD and Hyper Beam being awkward to use, and Anna's AoE having random targeting and thus only useful for finishing off weakened foe groups. Knowing how to gear character is also an issue, as Lance's Magic stat isn't too impressive compared to Natalie without the 100% buff to back him up.

* Matt has no real AoE option besides Sawblades, while NoLegs' chain hits are not exactly as reliable as a conventional AoE, and regains less than 80 base power after a successful kill. This is compensated by Matt already being a monster at single target nuking, and NoLegs' chain hits having some extra spare hits to help slay foes that might survive a normal AoE.

[Shily]

I use matt to buff ann, she shoots aoe nat gives another turn and shoot another aoe.

[correction needed]

The thing about Natz is that she is very consistent. She can choose either single-target or target-all (unlike Matt and NoLegs), without any cooldowns (unlike Lance). She also has many more elements to use (unlike Anna), those being Fire, Ice, Thunder, Bio, Non-elemental, Holy and Dark. Since the bonus Wind (Shockwave), Bomb (Energy Barrage), Water (Bubble Blast) and Earth (Gaia Blossom) skills are magic skills (which Natz especially excels at, it would be useless if you gave them to Matt, Anna or NoLegs), I gave them to her as well, and it works wonders

[Viggy]

Try giving Natz Dark Bauble, Dark Gown, and Obsidian. And give Lance Green Goliath, and the Mage Hat + Outfit. No Flairs on either one. Natz has the highest base Magic Attack, Lance's skills are only stronger because they are *supposed* deal more damage. Lance is meant to be a "use him for a few turns before putting him away because of his lengthy cool-downs." Natz is a balanced Mage for many situations, Offensive or Healing, Lance is a straight up Nuker (Literally) with powerful Physical and Magical attacks with other spells sprinkled about. This dynamic is actually brought up in game a few times, by both Matt, Natalie, and maybe Lance (memory is a bit foggy).