The Book of Dhalsim

[johnny139]

So, I figure I'll ask to make sure: any plans on playtesting here, @SirGalahad ? If not, mind if I add him to my list? I figure since I've been spearheading the Street Fighter initiative, it wouldn't hurt.

[IAmBatman]

I'll be shocked if he minds.

[TrollBrute]

Was just going to ask if you wanted the Initial here, johnny.

[SirGalahad]

Be my guest. My new job has had a lot of clean up work left over by my predecessor--state and federal reporting, for example.

I will have a couple of free nights next week if he still needs it.

[johnny139]

Illy handle him this weekend or the next, then. If I don't get to it by Monday, you can go ahead. Then if you don't get to it by next Friday, I'll go ahead.

[johnny139]

And three months later...

Finally knocked this one out (entirely unrelated to the prodding from Bats, I swear!). Tell me if there's anything wrong with the form - it's been a while and we've had a lot of changes recently.

C3G INITIAL PLAYTEST FEEDBACK FORM

NAME OF THE PLAYTEST UNIT: Dhalsim

Heavy Hitter or Mid-Level Hero Tests

Spoiler Alert!

TEST 1
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Toad (95 Points)
Summary: Toad wins; 0 Wounds, 1 Round. It's a fascinating match, where the traditional rules of terrain and height advantage are meaningless... cut short by Caustic Phlegm hitting two skulls and Dhalsim whiffing.

TEST 2
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Toad (95 Points)
Summary: Toad wins; 0 Wounds, 1 Round. Same story - in general, Dhalsim seems to have a weak chin. May just be bad rolls, though.

TEST 3
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Captain Cold (90 Points)
Summary: Captain Cold wins; 1 Wound, 2 Rounds. The Cold Gun can easily freeze through Dhalsim's defenses, and his one hit with Yoga Fire didn't light any fires.

TEST 4
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Captain Boomerang (90 Points)
Summary: Captain Boomerang wins; 0 Wounds, 1 Round. And again! His defense just doesn't hold up to mid-level heroes in his weight class.

TEST 5
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Dum Dum Dugan (90 Points)
Summary: Dum Dum Dugan wins; 3 Wounds, 2 Rounds. VERY close one here. A different initiative roll could easily have switched things around; interesting gameplay as per usual.

TEST 6
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Shadowcat (80 Points)
Summary: Dhalsim wins; 2 Wounds, 2 Rounds. At last, a win! Shadowcat is just weaker in melee, particularly against a guy with automatic height.

TEST 7
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Lagoon Boy (90 Points)
Summary: Lagoon Boy wins; 0 Wounds, 2 Rounds. Hmm, fighting a guy that's pretty much pure stats... not the best for Dhalsim.

TEST 8
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Speedy: Mia Dearden (80 Points)
Summary: Dhalsim wins; 3 Wounds, 1 Round. He whiffs against Mia's first shot, but then goes in for a Yoga Fire... only one wound off the bat, but then THREE with Burn Damage. Awesome stuff.

TEST 9
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Mass Master (80 Points)
Summary: Dhalsim wins; 0 Wounds, 2 Rounds. Another successful Yoga Fire burns through Mass Master; it feels REALLY good to hit on that extra die.

TEST 10
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Krypto (80 Points)
Summary: Krypto wins; 2 Wounds, 2 Rounds. Actually a pretty close one here - Krypto has the raw stats to keep Dhalsim down, though. Also he flies...

___________________________________________________________

Squad Tests

Spoiler Alert!

TEST 1
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Civilians x2 (90 Points)
Summary: Civilians win; 3 destroyed, 3 Rounds. NO multi-attack against lots of moving fists... Dhalsim doesn't have the odds in his favor.

TEST 2
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim (90 Points) vs. Bad Cops x2 (110 Points)
Summary: Dhalsim wins; 1 Wound, 2 Rounds. With less sheer attacks, Dhalsim's defense holds up and helps keep the Beat Cops down.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim, Star-Lord, Shadowcat, Lockheed, Alien Drone (600 Points) vs. Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Ryu (600 Points)

Spoiler Alert!

Summary

ROUND 1: Iron Fist leads the charge, coming in hard on the Guardians and killing Lockheed with a single punch. He doesn't have any luck for the rest of the round, but he becomes priority #1 for the team.

ROUND 2: While Iron Fist goes after Star-Lord, Luke is tied up with the Alien; in retrospect, Ryu should have dealt with him from afar. While Iron Fist brings Star-Lord up to 4 Wounds, Luke hits the Drone too hard and... SPLOOSH! Acid all over, Luke is killed.

ROUND 3: Dhalsim manages to hit Iron Fist for one, but he knocks out Star-Lord and then heals. He then takes out Shadowcat.

ROUND 4: Dhalsim and Iron Fist tussle; he takes three, dishes out two with Yoga Flame, and then goes down.

Who won?: Street Fighters win; 2 Wounds on Iron Fist, Ryu unharmed, Luke Cage destroyed, 4 Rounds.

Thoughts: Dhalsim actually pulled his weight here, dishing out three wounds to Iron Fist (which is worth at least 100 points, I'd say) - at least one was a lucky hit, but with the boost from Star-Lord he was definitely in the right range as far as damage output goes.

___________________________________________________________

Army Test
Map: Badlands (Custom Map)
Units: Dhalsim, Red Skull [Hasbro], Ryu, Ken, Zangief, E. Honda, Jewel (1010 Points) vs. Nightwing, Starfire, Raven, Wonder Girl, Robin: Tim Drake, Batgirl: Cassandra Cain (990 Points)

Spoiler Alert!

Summary

ROUND 1: The Titans have a lot more turns to take, and take them they do... I don't have a good feeling about this one!

ROUND 2: Starfire hits Dhalsim for one, and Ryu comes to fight. Wonder Girl ropes him in, but no damage, and Jewel comes to help. The big turn comes out - Titans, Go! - which is enough for Starfire to kill Ryu. Nightwing hits Jewel for two.

ROUND 3: Ken comes to fight, but misses Starfire; he takes all the turns, dealing two to Raven and taking two himself. He throws a Hail Mary and ends up hitting Batgirl for three. The Titans team up to take him down, and finish off Jewel incidentally.

ROUND 4: Dhalsim draws fire for a while, wounding both Nightwing and Raven - with Yoga Fire, unfortunately not hitting anything for Burn Damage. He gets knocked out by Starfire, though. They move onto Red Skull, giving him some wounds.

ROUND 5: E. Honda dives in - hitting an 18 with his headbutt, enough to bring Dick up to 3 Wounds. Red Skull gets killed, then E. Honda gets wounded.

ROUND 6: A very lucky Slap ends up taking out Nightwing on Turn 1; Zangief comes in and hits Starfire for one. Both E. Honda and the Gief take a wound.

ROUND 7: Cassie comes in to give Starfire more attacks; E. Honda tries to finish her off, but fails. Starfire burns Zangief to ash, but the round ends with the Sumo still alive.

ROUND 8: And now he is dead.

Who won?: Teen Titans win; 3 Wounds on Batgirl, 2 Wounds on Starfire, Nightwing destroyed, all others unharmed, 8 Rounds.

Thoughts: Really minor role here among the Street Fighters; he slightly underperformed, but that was bad dice, whiffing on his Burn Damage autowounds TWICE. He really could have nailed Nightwing with those extra wounds...

___________________________________________________________

THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT'S COST, BALANCE, & DRAFTABILITY: He feels slightly underpowered to me - he has the potential to do damage in the right builds, but I don't think he's really all that draftable - others in his price range do that just as well, and he has a completely unsynergistic design. A few tweaks I think could help:

- Let Yoga Fire deal Burn Damage to adjacent figures (to help with crowd control) or have it subtract 1 Defense die (to make it more attractive against his normal attack, which is better in 90% of cases).
- Let Levitation ignore elevation changes of less than 2 spaces. The guy can teleport and float around, so if he can go over water he can go over little valleys, logically. A little more manueverability would help.
- Possibly bump his Defense by 1. 5 Defense, often 6 with height, would do wonders for survivability, which was his biggest weakness in 1v1 matches.

The first two would probably bring him up to 90, the last maybe even up to 100 Points. As-is, I'd drop him down to 80 at least.

GENERAL THOUGHTS ON THE TESTED UNIT: Honestly, he's a ton of fun. Levitation ignores so many basic facts of the game (height, terrain) that it makes playing with or against him a bit of a puzzle, strategically; your usual moves won't work. And Yoga Fire, when it's hot, is immensely satisfying. He just needs to last a bit longer.

[IAmBatman]

I'll have to see what else I can ineffectively prod you on.

Changes make sense.

One other thing is that Levitation shouldn't grant height advantage over other figures with Levitation. That'll let us reuse it.

[Margloth]

Dropping his range by 1 (and possibly upping the range of the SA) could help the special attack. Why does he have a base range of 3 anyway? I get 2 because of his stretchiness, but he shouldn't out stretch guys like Mr. Fantastic or Plastic man. It feels like all of his othe range should be represented in his special attack.

[johnny139]

Dhalsim (like most Street Fighters) has projectiles other than just Yoga Fire, which are represented in his normal Range. They're all fire based, though, so it's justifiable to put then all under his SA and drop his Range. Up to SorG there.

[TrollBrute]

Dropping his Range to 2 and either raising his Defense or making the SA a little more appealing seem like good changes to me.

One issue I just noticed though. This guy vs Flacon breaks the game. They are both considered to have height advantage on each other. Now, we can just add "that does not have the Aerial Advantage power" to Dhalsim, and get around that, but it does make it tricky if we ever do another, similar power.

[johnny139]

We've got "non-flying" in there for exactly that reason - but I agree that it's going to be tough to layer it any deeper than we already have.

[IAmBatman]

Originally Posted by TrollBrute

Dropping his Range to 2 and either raising his Defense or making the SA a little more appealing seem like good changes to me.

One issue I just noticed though. This guy vs Flacon breaks the game. They are both considered to have height advantage on each other. Now, we can just add "that does not have the Aerial Advantage power" to Dhalsim, and get around that, but it does make it tricky if we ever do another, similar power.

Falcon is a flying figure, so it doesn't affect him. That said, if something negates just his flying and not the other power (like that one official glyph - not sure we have anything that does it in C3G) then we'd have to FAQ whether he's still considered a "flying" figure. Thematically he wouldn't be, but I'd argue that he would still be, as flying would still be a power on his army card.

Edit: So I'll take this opportunity to again bring up the point that Levitation shouldn't work against other figures with Levitation, so we can reuse it without the breaking issue.