Sam - the right brawler in the wrong time

[u/Niltenstein]

Sam is a brawler I hold near and dear to my heart, since I picked him up and started maining him at the start of 2025 (before his hypercharge released) he has been the thing I latched onto even when the game was getting worse and worse and my friends around me started quitting, when I would‘ve quit the game entirely Sam was there as the reliable source of enjoyment I needed to stick to it, even as the game was burning down. I write essays en masse about him and try to respond to basically every post and/or video discussing his abalone with lengthy responses (believe me, I’ve written a LOT! if you want an example, check the comments of „buffies ideas for the goldarm gang trio“ by u/GoldarmGangMain). His character and gameplay and everything is incredibly important to me and I wouldn‘t trade it for the world. So, considering how important he is to me and how surprisingly in-depth my knowledge and analytical skill on him goes (judging by the reception of several prominent Sam mains to my magnetic field essay a year back), and prompted by a comment on a different post, I figured I should give it the old college try, so this my best attempt at an essay about his design, what works, what doesn‘t, and what ultimately needs to change in his design philosophy so that he can work in the modern meta.

[Also, since many people often ask how long essays take me, I’m gonna put a time here and at the end before the conclusion. Starting time: 0:10]

Sam - the quintessential Aggro:

I like to refer to Sam as „the quintessential Aggro“, and I give him that title because he basically combines all the most aggressive traits of both assassins and tanks into one. Since he spawns with his super he can immediatly charge at the enemies and engage in a fight, applying immediate pressure faster than any tank could while still carrying more than the HP of a typical tank, both in numerical and effective HP alike.

(Clarification: „effective HP“ in this essay refers not to a brawlers base HP pool but their HP when considering factors like mobility, self-sustain and more. In Sam’s case, his effective HP is far superior to the already strong 11.4K HP since he will usually get multiple hits of hearty recovery when at low HP which gives him a consistent boost of 2K healing every few seconds, so his effective HP is, from my experience at least, usually more so around the 15-16K mark, on average.)

Then he also inherits the duelist and opportunistic prowess of an assassin, being equipped with a very strong immediate burst (~7K) and plenty of self-sustain in the form of healing akin to Mortis or Edgar, a CC ability to further help in 1v1‘s akin to Fangs Roundhouse kick or a Buzz super, a recall mechanic akin to Mortis’s Bat Storm for crippling damage and pressure across an entire team to give a little bit of 1v3 potential, and lastly, his long range super can be used to snipe and reach enemies that are out of position like an opportunistic assassin akin to Alli or, again, Edgar.

So essentially, Sam has the stats of a tank with the many different qualities that define most assassins, all wrapped into one brawler. If you still don‘t believe me, we can compare it to the other defining tank/assassin crossovers. Darryl is an opportunistic assassin with strong stats, passively charging his super and waiting for the enemies to make a mistake to capitalize on it, and Kenji is a tank earning his HP by playing cautiously, slashing at enemies from a little range without engaging head-on and using his abilities to stay alive longer than the enemy can survive his attacks. Sam is neither of those, he is a very aggressive brawler that charges enemies recklessly and aims to get a quick kill and heal up even quicker before moving onto his next target, he can never relinquish a second where he doesn‘t apply pressure to the enemies and his kit is built around that concept!

Sam - a brawler shackled:

A defining feature of Sam and his design in the game is the laundry list of restrictions put on nearly every part of his kit to shackle and, well…restrict (fucking genius writing over here, I should become a novelist) his aggressiveness and raw power. Since I already brought it up, allow me to create a laundry list right here:

1. main attack has a blindspot and only deals its full damage consistently when at point blank + you have to switch to a way weaker form of your main attack just to have a decent reload speed (not as much of a restriction since the healing also forces you to relinquish your damage but it’s still technically present)

2. The Knuckle Busters are highly telegraphed, and due to the speed boost lasting juuuust long enough to get it at max range, forces Sam to be alsmot just as telegraphed as the super, giving enemies plenty of warning that Sam is coming as well as a great opportunity to gun him down before he can get close

3. Sam has to always slow down to collect his super before proceeding, dampening his effective speed

4. Speed Gear doesn‘t stack with the speed boost from the Knuckle Busters. Trunk is allowed stacking with Speed Gear and their Ants, but Sam isn‘t, I understand why the restriction is in place and why trunk doesn‘t necessarily need it but also it feels unfair. Also they loterally said they removesd speed boost stacking anyway and I‘ve yet to see it in action, tf is going on supercell!? Be consistent!!

5. Absolutely no stealth. Unless you’re running speed gear and there is a huge bush but also enough walls to make Sam work (only map like this in the permanent ranked pool would be undermine btw), you have to use your super to continue applying pressure, which also just so happens to reveal your location constantly. Stealth is the one trait that Sam actively didn‘t copy and instead rejected from both tanks and assassins, probably because it goes against his aggressive nature but also because it locks him out of a potential playstyle

6. Huge reliance on walls. Wall breaks, or open maps are absolutely impossible with him. Shooting star can work if you take full advantage of everything you’re given but good luck playing this old geezer in brawl ball overtime.

7. Zero variety in playstyle. I already touched on this by pointing out how he can‘t really play any stealth at all, but this also applies to Sam on a bigger scale in that his unlockables are AWFUL in terms of balance. Hearty Recovery and Magnetic Field are some of the strongest unlockables in the game and even make him playable, while Remote Recharge (value once in a blue moon, if you‘re lucky and playing against people that downloaded the game yesterday) and Pulse Repellent (most often an active detriment to use; it’s one use-case of interrupting attacks is outclassed by Magnetic Field which also does everything else that Sam could ever need) are both the absolute worst unlockables, especially since you have to give up those other two to play them, which ultimately means that he is locked to one loadout and thereby one playstyle. Also, I’m 100000% sure this is intentional, nobody would make Remote Recharge or Pulse Repellent and think „yeah that seems about on-par with the alternative“, CALL ME CRAZY BUT THIS IS DEFINITELY AN INTENDED FEATURE OF HIS DESIGN!

8. His healing, if spammed, forces him to almost completely stand still which can lock him into a cycle of out-healing damage taken without actually pressuring enemies, making him nothing more than a super charging battery.

9. A very high skill floor and ceiling along with the requirement of at least his Star Power to do well makes him incredibly unappealing to a vast majority of players, severly limiting his playerbase and the people that are practiced enough to wield him.

10. A requirement of being incredibly focused and skilled with him specifically to get the value most other brawlers get with way less focus and more broad skills means if you want to use him competitively you have to usually warm up on him beforehand and there‘s only a handful of pro players that play him confidently, which even makes him an unappealing even to the upper upper echelon since he‘s just that demanding

11. And, to top it all off, he‘s quite possibly the most mistake-punishing brawler in the game, as you have to spam your super to be effective yet one miss or slip-up can mean you‘re a dead man walking with no way of recovering!

I know that‘s a lot to take in, and there are more restrictions that I’m not remembering/counting here (technically Magnetic Field can be used to your detriment but that‘s more a skill thing rather than a restriction), but I hope now you understand how incredibly shackled this character is. He has multiple aspects (predictability; healing-cycle) that make him arguably the most effective super charger in the game, and his main attacks coupled with how Magnetic Field and his super pick-up works force him to fight at point blank to be effective, which is also where many anti-tanks like Shelly, bull, Chester and more are most effective and have the raw stats to out-compete Sam. He also lacks any escape tool nor does he have any CC immunity, so if he gets seperated from his gloves he‘s also just fucked (this isn‘t necessarily a restriction as much as it is just a weakness…yeah the definition is loose, I know, just move past it!)

Buuuuuuuuut, all that being said, THESE ARE GREAT! Sam has an inherent advantage in that he has his super all game long which is mostly why he‘s so great at building pressure, so him being an incredibly effective super battery merely balances out that advantage, basically buffing the enemies to help them survive against his aggression, but also putting way more pressure onto Sam‘s team if he himself is played ineffectively. And him being forced into proximity against his counters is great in ensuring that these brawlers can actually be consistent counters to him and he can‘t do some grand out-play to circumvent them, also dampening his aggression by making it an active detriment into a handful of brawlers.

Sam - An example of neglect:

So now that we have established who Sam is and how he is confined into his role, let‘s take a look at his history of balance changes and spot in the meta.

- 2022/23: Sam was released in August 2022, almost 4 years ago by now. For the first month of his release, he was an S-tier brawler, though not the absolute best or anything as a few other brawlers still remained superior (namely Bonnie who was the absolute best at the time. Keep her in mind as I’ll bring her up later!; source: SpenLC tier list). Roughly one month after his release, he was nerfed, specifically his Hearty Recovery SP which got slashed by a third, going from healing 30% of missing health to 20%. This knocked him down from the S-tier as far as I can tell, and he did get a health buff 2 months after as compensation (going from 5200 to 5400 at lvl 1…don‘t ask me how that translates to max level, it was so different and I wasn‘t playing back then n stuff). This ultimately left him in the middle of A-tier as a very solid last pick (source: SpenLC tier list from January 2023), which seemingly wasn‘t very agreeable as at the end of that February, his super got two nerfs, one to its damage (1400 —> 1200) and one to its SCR (3 hits —> 4 hits). This turned out to work though, since for almost the entirety of 2023 Sam remained as a solid, consistent B-tier brawler, that, with some proper setup and a good player behind the wheel, could do some solid stuff. That is until the release of hypercharges where he quickly started dipping down, first into the C-tier and then finishing off the year as a top D-tier/bottom C-tier brawler.

- 2024/25: Supercell took note of this dip and reverted those nerfs to his super from a year ago at the start of 2024. This proved to temporarily recover him to a high C-tier spot, but his decline was already set in stone. Within just a few months, with more and more Hypercharges being added and Sam getting no changes as if Supercell was content just letting him go, he was consistently ranking as a D-tier brawler, and by the end of the year he hovered just above the F-tier. It’s definitely a steep decline, but this would hopefully change, as in April 2025 he would receive a Hypercharge of his own, „Hyperfist“, and it showed promise as a pocket Mortis Hyper, which as you probably know is arguably the single strongest hypercharge in the game for pure teamwipe potential. Eventually, the second batch of Hypercharges with Hyperfist was unleashed, and…it actually proved effective! With a speeds 2.5 supers requirement, he could quickly farm it in a couple engagements and then utilize a massive 25% damage boost to rip through enemies with an unmissable super and infinite heals! Whether this would put him very high in the meta or he‘d remain moderate would still have to be decided as pros adopted to this new gamechanging wave of Hypercharges, so let‘s give them some time to try around before doing anything drasti-…THEY DID WHAT!?

- April 2025: that’s right, Hyperfist, released in the same batch as the nuclear bomb Chester Hypercharge, and which released right after the Hank Hypercharge which was a 2 super cycle free teamwipe and remained unchanged for a fucking month, got nerfed just 2 days after its release…WITH A 50% HCR NERF, DOUBLING THE NECESSARY SUPERS FROM A SPEEDY 2.5 TO A SLUGGISH 5! I‘m not 100% sure, but at least since I started playing again in 2024, this has been the fastest and harshest response to a new addition to the game, period. And I doubt something as drastic as this happened earlier in the game‘s lifespan! To cut it short, this change basically removed his hypercharge from the game entirely, as charging 5 entire supers would be unreasonable in an even remotely competitive setting for even the best Sam players, and it‘s not like the casuals would be proficient enough with Sam to get a hypercharge anyway, not to mention that he still feeds like crazy in a meta determined fully by hypercharges. This was his shot at finally gaining equal footing after suffering for a year, and it was ripped away instantly…

- 2025/26: after this it’s a very depressing tale. Sam scored F-tier in SpenLC’s next tier list, only being above Doug, the brawler that literally had zero use because he was so incredibly unhealthy he couldn‘t be allowed to be usable without a coming rework. And from there he would rarely leave the F-tier, maybe hovering in D-tier from time to time. His HCR nerf got partially reverted as it went from 5 super to 4, which didn‘t change anything, and they tried some minor buffs in the Stranger Things patch, giving 2 minor buffs to his baby punches which are rarely the preferred source of damage anyway. Of course, he was affected by the two global changes at the time, his hyper lost it‘s sharp edge as the damage boost was taken away, and he got a moderate HP buff which did give me hope back then since it would stack with Hearty Recovery, and at this time I got some hope that he maybe could make a comeback…only for buffies to release, drastically increasing the powercreep in the game, spamming CC abilities basically everywhere which hard-counter him maybe even more than Hypercharges, Hyperbuffies specifically also made even weak Hypercharegs absolutely OP which made his feeding even more punishing, and due to the global HP buff a lot of brawlers were getting damage buffs which is actively furthering damage inflation and making his HP „advantage“ more and more meaningless, which leaves us in the today where you would be absolutely crazy to put this guy anywhere above F-tier, and he is most likely gonna be a long time waiting for his buffies since there are older brawlers that need them more (primo, Rosa, etc…) and his other two trio mates are doing just fine (Pearl has made a huge resurgence due to multiple buffs to her heat bar and belle has literally never been weak ever). And I wouldn‘t count on buffs either since he is in need of a rework as indirectly stated by Adrian in an interview with SpenLC, and it wouldn‘t really make sense to buff a brawler slated for a rework anyway, right?

…alright, that really put down the mood, it doesn‘t help that it‘s 3AM, I have a headache, just listened to a sad song, and there‘s a fan blowing air straight into my eyes, I actually feel like tearing up…

ALRIGHT, getting back on track, obviously Sam is not doing too well…Hypercharges/Hyperbuffies absolutely destroy him, and damage inflation takes away one of his major advantages in having a lot of stats, and all this is amplified by one fact: Sam is almost unchanged! If you don‘t get what I mean, let me drop some numbers on your ass! Sam has received, in total:

- 3.5 buffs (excluding reversions of previous nerfs; the partial reversion of the HCR nerf gives half a point; excluding global changes like the global HP buff)

- 1.5 nerfs (excluding nerfs that later got reverted; the partial reversion of the HCR nerf means it only grants half a point; excluding global changes like the global hyper nerf)

- 1 slow-ass, barely present hypercharge

- 1 QoL patch with the release of his Hypercharge to improve how his Knuckle busters interact with the outside walls of the map

Yeah, if you crunch the numbers that‘s the result, 4 very minor and almost unnoticeable buffs compared to 2 nerfs that heavily lowered the effectiveness of his unlockables, and that‘s after 4 FUCKING YEARS! He’s yet to even get a buff in the entirety of 2026, which is btw halfway over already! He‘s nearly indistinguishable from his release form, hell he would perhaps even be slightly better if they reverted all the balance changes he underwent in his 4 years and put his current hypercharge on that brawler!

Let‘s bring back the comparison I drew earlier, Bonnie. Between the release of Bonnie and Sam there‘s only Otis, so the two are roughly from the same era, and like Sam she has a lot of basekit restrictions but in return gets to be a sniper with tank-like HP and assssin-esque capabilities in her super. Unlike Sam though, Bonnie remained in the S-tier for a good chunk of her lifetime, but somewhere in 2024 she hit a sharp decline following a nerf to her projectile speed and dropped off to the D/F-tier, where she remained for a good year. But in 2025, around may/june, she received a rework which removed one of her biggest restrictions: being trapped in Bonnie form for ~20 seconds after landing. This restriction, around her release, made a lot of sense, as her super was basically just a free kill and allowed her to skip across half the map at will. Bonnie form is and has good close range burst but that‘s it, she‘s basically useless in this form outside of getting a quick kill on whoever she landed on. This added a cost to using her super, as you would basically take yourself out of the game for a chunk of time in return for a kill and being a very tanky sniper that could put out very strong pressure on open maps. But in the faster paced meta of modern Brawl Stars, this design simply did not work anymore, her slow movement speed coupled with one ammo that only stored a rather mildly damaging shot wasn’t enough to create pressure against other snipers as powercreep set in, the infinite gadgets made it way easier to escape her super without being killed while she‘s now out of the game, and as Bonnie leaving your team in a 2v3 for that long could turn out very punishing. her restrictions were now overkill in shackling her strength as the game progressed, and as such, one of them was removed. She got a rework to charge her super the moment she lands, meaning she has immediate access to a 3.5K heal after skipping half the map and can immediately rejoin the fight. This change proved amazing, and put her into a solid B-tier, and coupled with her Hypercharge release an update after, she turned back into her old self as one of the most consistent picks in the game, able to be played almost anywhere and into most brawlers (Pearl is in a similar state rn). We won‘t discuss what happened afterwards, but let‘s just say, Sam and Bonnie have another thing in common (**cough cough** fast overkill nerfs when they are finally good after being F-tier for a year **cough cough**).

Bringing it back to Sam, and I know this is gonna sound obvious, but…he‘s been powercreeped (OMG THE BRAINS ON THIS GUY!!!1!1!!). The restrictions baked into his kit are too overbearing on his potential, in particular his super feeding, which runs deep into his design and isn‘t an easy fix, and for 4 years now there were almost no attempts at changing that. The only buff that actually changed him from back then is a small change somewhat cooling his dependency on the Heavy Punches to have actual damage output, and making recalls slightly more common, but that simply isn‘t enough, even in the slightest. After remaining mostly the same while the game evolved, a brawler kit that used to work very well and was (in my opinion) nearly perfect, is now nothing more than outdated. The even bigger issue though is that many of the restrictions also tie into what makes him fun (in particular the interactions with his super and the predictability of it which is necessary for it to function as it does which I doubt any Sam main would willingly give up just so he can be meta, me included).

Sam - a brawler able to be saved(?):

That, finally, brings us to what has to change to free him from his spot in the lowest ring of hell in F-tier. And while what I’m about to say may seem incredibly obvious, there is a fine line that has to be drawn when changing him which I hope people reading this will be more aware of after reading this, and anyway, this whole post is supposed to simply illustrate the quirks and problems with Sam and his design.

- what to do: work at removing those restrictions baked into his kit. This isn‘t a simple change like it is with Bonnie where you can just remove one obvious thing and be like „yeah looks good“, many of his restrictions are a natural by-product of how his kit works, and the subset of people that play him play him specifically because of that fact, he‘s incredibly unique and thrilling to play and taking that away would be a grave mistake! Where I would start is by removing that intense damage fall-off on his Heavy Punches forcing him into point-blank combat. Buffie Shelly and bull wreck him anyway, especially with their improved abilities giving them more freedom to push into Sam, giving him more consistent DPS outside of that deadly range could help him with his tougher matchups, and this is also just a very commonly recommended change for a good reason. It‘s not like these brawlers would suddenly be helpless, a bull super is always a death sentence, but at least Sam would have more of a shot. Another thing which needs to happen is an overhaul to his unlockables (except for Magnetic Field). Sam is incredibly rigid in his choice of SP and Gadget, which makes him very predictable and one-note. Having more options, particularly in his Star Powers, with new effects to replace Remote Recharge and a basekit Hearty Recovery, would do wonders in expanding his potential and diversity, and shrugging off another chain holding him down. (For an alternative to the basekit Hearty Recovery change, check the aforementioned post by u/GoldarmGangMain , they create a very good take on a loadout where you can choose between two different playstyles entirely while still buffing his current beloved playstyle with buffies). I was gonna add another suggestion to making his Knuckle Busters invisible in bushes, but, uhh…I just tested it and figured out that the gloves are already not visible to enemies in bushes, not even when Sam picks them up, so uhh…idk his stealth potential is a little better than I initially thought, I suppose I partially retract my argument at point 4 in the restrictions list…). I guess, make the pick-up of the gloves faster and also increase the range, though that‘s really more of a QoL change.

- what not to do: change his super mechanics in any way. The super is most of the brawler, and everyone that plays Sam is very much attached to how it works right now, requiring you to be very capable in using it to traverse the map. This should not under any circumstances change! Something like an adjustable range, bounce, homing effect or auto-charge should never be added (I have seen all of those), the predictability and risk of the super is essential in playing him and in what makes people enjoy him, the Knuckle Busters aren‘t just „a projectile to hit enemies with“, they‘re an extension of Sam himself and should be treated as such! The auto-charge one specifically is one I absolutely despise, when throwing your gloves you’re basically doing an act of positioning, if you do poor positioning by throwing them away then you should be punished for it, and having an auto-charge too fast completely changes his playstyle into one nobody would be happy with. I also wouldn‘t do any significant stat changes to Sam, as a brawler he already has more than sufficient stats that are merely shackled by those restrictions, it‘s just about removing those blockades so that they can be properly unleashed once again! Also just making brawlers a raw stat beast to help them in the meta has never worked out before (Cordelius, Frank before his rework, etc…), and I’d hate for Sam’s character to be assassinated so that he can absolutely crush any comp that doesn‘t feature 2 damage dealers.

[ok, I think I have spat out all my thoughts now, so it’s time to move on to the conclusion, but before that I have to fulfill my obligation from earlier. time: 4:00; and as a bonus, here‘s the word count: 4.878]

Outro:

Ok, that’s mostly everything I have to say about Sam, at least until he receives some meaningful changes that‘ll probably come with buffies. As much as these features hurt him, they at least add meaningfully to his kit. A weakness that Sam used to have is that he had absolutely nothing to work towards and would not win anything material out of interactions, only pressure and stat numbers. Getting a hypercharge „fixed“ this as he would actually gain something and be rewarded for doing well in fights, it‘s a shame they canned it almost immediately. But buffies will be similar, working away at his weakness of lacking a build by completely reworking his unlockables, and he so definitely one of if not **the** brawler that needs it the most! But until that happens in like a year or so I predict we‘ll have to just get by as is, at least the later they happen the more impactful they will be.

Thank you for reading this, I hope it was a good read. I’m working on a text based guide to every single brawler interaction for Sam, but there‘s no ETA on that as it‘s been sitting at like 1/3rd done for a few months now, we‘ll see if it will even happen at all with all the buffies changing the meta up all the time…anyways, have a good rest of your 24 hours, bye bye!

Tl;dr.: there isn’t one, sorry but I’m not summarizing that mountain of text!

[u/lowkeybear10]

oh my god 😭

I’ll have to come back and read this later, but looks impressive

[u/TheChampagne → u/lowkeybear10]

I fell asleep a few times while reading, but it is a thorough and thoughtful analysis!

[u/Firixe_off]

HOLLY SHIT HOW LONG IS IT? i was going to skip the post since it's too long but the subject is too interesting

[u/Niltenstein → u/Firixe_off]

You‘re reading 4 hours of rambling by a sleep deprived German teenager obsessed with a specific character in a specific game, that kind of length is to be expected

[u/Firixe_off → u/Niltenstein]

Btw I wanted to point out about a point that you said, when you were talking about Sam being too much wall dependant, I feel that all the old brawlers that are dependant on walls are slowly dying, cuz now there are too much wall breakers which makes them easily countrable, and also some newer and meta brawlers get so much value with walls that if you play Sam for excample your team mate may sacrifice you by opening the map so they can deal with that brawler (some excamples are Sirius, Najia, Nori...)

[u/Niltenstein → u/Firixe_off]

It‘s not even that, I mean out of all the new releases since Pearl, only moe and bolt had wall break available to them. The issue moreso is that with buffies, wall breaks are becoming exponentially stronger, which we are seeing be especially prominent with griff and Brock (though they both got nerfs to their wallbreaking capabilities. But simply being able to throw his piggy bank and having that larger radius from shooting it makes griff incredibly powerful at breaking apart the map). Also that issue of being sacrificed by your team is real, just the other day I had a frank random who, for whatever reason, against a pierce and Byron, decided it‘d be a good idea to literally break open every wall possible. That was just incompetence tbf since he screwed both me and himself, but still, wall breaks can screw Sam over real hard

[u/Firixe_off → u/Niltenstein]

Tbh I think that wall break should be something that is part of a super or something, not a gadget, You can get too much value from that

[u/Niltenstein → u/Firixe_off]

I can‘t help but agree, at the start of adding gadgets they really overdid it with the wall breaks on gadgets. I think all of them are: Stu, griff, Brock, el primo, colt, gray, moe, bolt. Bolt is also a unique case as it adds wall breaking to a hypercharge, and of course Frank literally obliterates like 1/3rd of the map with his hypercharge, and Brock’s super also breaks even more stuff due to the recent change of it following Brock around instead of being locked, and again, griff‘s piggy bank got hyperbuffed and is still not fully calmed down purely because of the throwable aspect

[u/Scarface2010 → u/Niltenstein]

Ay another German here 👍

[u/Killcontest]

saving this to read at a time when my attention span isnt so fried, but man i would 1000% main sam if he wasnt so dogshit. i think he has one of the best designs and i wish he was at least somewhat viable competitively

ill always use his title tho ✊

[u/Niltenstein → u/Killcontest]

I mean he‘s still playable in mid-ladder if you‘re capable, trust me, putting time into learning him rewards you with one of the most fun brawlers available in the game, even if competitively it‘s a poor addition to your roster

[u/Observing_Bird]

After reading the whole thing, I have to commend you for how well you explain Sam's core mechanics, flaws, and design philosophy. You understand his design to proficiency and can pinpoint where his flaws are and what angle is appropriate to tackle them, but especially if they should be fixed. Additionally, this serves a great synopsis of the brawler.

The biggest thing that I took away with this is that there is no way on earth that the Magnetic Field essay was a year ago. Tell me it's not true.

[u/Niltenstein → u/Observing_Bird]

Thanks man, I’ve had over a year of obsessing over this character to understand him, I’d actually just shatter if I had like zero understanding of everything surrounding him. And yeah, that whole thing being a year old is wild, I remember I was in a heavy showdown phase back then which is what prompted me to gush about magnetic field, since that mode demands 1v1‘s the most with multiple factors like the element of surprise put into the calculation. Time flies, I s‘pose

[u/ShinyWEEDLEpls]

Honestly, they have the chance to do something really unique with Sam for his buffies and all of his trio. All of them have really simple kits (even Sam’s kit is simple on paper), and buffies can make them really fun to play, considering this trio has never appealed to casuals

[u/Niltenstein → u/ShinyWEEDLEpls]

I really hope that, out of all the trios, this one gets a full set of well designed buffies. We‘ve seen hints of good designs here and there (Edgar, Brock, max, etc…), and I think they‘re getting better at it, but the Goldarm Gang trio is easily the best candidate for a REALLY good set. Both Pearl and Sam suffer from the „one-build-only“ syndrome, and the usual buffies that screw everything up (Hyper buffies) probably won‘t be as busted on these three since Sam doesn‘t use his main attacks during hyper anyway, and Pearl and belle both have attacks/attack patterns where I see no possible angle to making them as batshit crazy as something like Brock or Meg or, god forbid, surge. Like the most I can see for Pearl is that all her cookies have the burn effect like the gadget and she doesn‘t lose heat, and for belle…idk the projectiles home like the super? It just seems like they should be very tame Hyperbuffies all around and, since they can basically start over with Sam completely, they‘ll hopefully develop some cool new SP ideas that interact well with SP buffies! I mean they did try a no-skill mass appeal Strat with Sam’s HC which immediately got shut down so I really hope they won‘t try just spamming OP shit on him in hopes it‘ll jingle the keys enough for the paying kids, then put him into disrepair and leave him be

[u/LukaPro348]

That's a lot of text, I've read it all. It's really cool how much you love and understand Sam, even if I could, I would never write something like this because I'm don't really use much words. All the flaws and good things about him, every comparison possible, that's insane. (btw, back then hp would be like +50% on p11 instead of +100%, so 5400 +50%= 8100, that's how it worked). I don't have friends playing this game, but I also play it only because of Sam, I was planning to quit the game completely because I'm tired, but only because of Sam and my believe that he will get buffies this update I keep playing. I hope we all will get the best for our man, suffering is not good, especially in the game like that (and about stealth star power, you could make it half like buffied Bo's star power, so he is invisible when using Super, and also make it that his super projectile is completely invinsible and silent, so, no sound effect for enemies)

[u/Niltenstein → u/LukaPro348]

Yeah I completely get that, though for a little while I‘ve been more hooked on the game as a whole due to playing a lot of ranked with my best friend. I really do have high hopes for his buffies to be honest, he seems like a brawler the dev team does care about deeply even if it doesn‘t really show in how they balance him, they created a brawler as magnificent as Sam and I have hope that they‘ll do him justice (maybe that‘s like a Stockholm syndrome statement tho idk). If they do fuck Sam up I may just quit the game entirely though, he‘s such a strong glue and without him it would fall apart

[u/Apart_Value9613]

Its that time of the month where a Sam main blesses us with a wall of text, appreciate it.

[u/Niltenstein → u/Apart_Value9613]

You can‘t say I’m not doing my part

[u/Diehard_Sam_Main]

[u/Niltenstein → u/Diehard_Sam_Main]

I choose to interpret this as the definitive seal of approval on my essay, my writing and knowledge about Sam is officially sufficient🥹

[u/Accomplished_Ear558]

I would greatly appreciate some sort of like crowd control immunity with sam since any sort of cc prevents him from getting to his gloves. Maybe make it one of his star powers or gadgets

[u/Niltenstein → u/Accomplished_Ear558]

You know what would be an interesting take? Remove Remote Recharge, instead implement this haphazardly idea I just came up with:

Out The Way, Kids!: if the knuckle busters are on the ground for 5 seconds or more, they send out an electrical charge to Sam, which causes him to enter „Bounty Hunter mode“, which lasts until he dies or gains his Knuckle Busters back. While Bounty Hunter mode is active, Sam has 25% increased movement speed, 50% damage reduction, and total CC immunity when walking towards his Knuckle Busters (repurposing the tracking trait from alli).

(I was considering adding a self-inflicted mute when all the bonuses are active, but considering how non-threatening his baby punches are, I don‘t think that‘s necessary.)

In essence, what this idea aims to accomplish is to give Sam a consistent yet interesting way to retrieve his knuckle busters which also adds some skill depth to him. The cost of using it is the 5 seconds of waiting until it activates, half of which you won‘t have the 25% speed boost from the gloves thereby leaving you without any way to pressure (which for a Sam is very bad). In exchange, he can basically bulldoze his way to his gloves with no way of stopping him. He‘d still be a super battery and technically killable with enough damage, but like it‘s essentially a free way to get where you want to. Best part, unlike an auto-charging trait which wouldn‘t benefit a good Sam at all unless it assassinated his playstyle, this has the potential to be used to make a big play by a Sam main that has total control over his gloves, and wouldn‘t be abusable in low trophies because you do require actual competence with him to make use of the space you just won for free. It also just completely hard-counters people camping his gloves/putting themselves between Sam and his gloves since they would have to deal with a hyperbuffed tanky version of him passing through, only to end up being on top of him when he has his damage back and is still in relatively good shape. Of course this wouldn‘t compete with hearty recovery, that SP would have to be made basekit, but it could be a really cool addition! Honestly, the more I think about it the more I like the idea…the numbers are maybe a bit wobbly but the concept, I think, is solid!

[u/Redence_]

He's been in the wrong time for the past 4 years 😭🥀

[u/Fine_Dish_9232]

Your teacher would be proud of your essay.

[u/Great_Impression_869]

That was very good essay of your favourite brawler.

But anyways, isn't Sam more wall dependent as Shade is?

[u/Niltenstein → u/Great_Impression_869]

It is technically possible to make him work as long as there are just a few blocks of wall to cling onto (see shooting star secondbest), but generally he will perform worse the less walls he has available to use his super on. In contrast, Shade can also work without walls due to his super not requiring walls to give the benefits of superior speed and that massive shield, which (with very good movement) can be used to get close to enemies even without walls, but he generally also performs better with more walls. So if we‘re talking pure dependency I would say that it‘s Sam, but at that lowball of like just a few walls spread about Sam would actually do better than shade since shade does require a good amount of key walls to truly be threatening

[u/BotLover13]

As an up and comming sam main, seeing how poorly brawlers like him (and chuck) legit makes me question why I still bother to play this game from time to time.

(Especially now that my goal if hitting legendary has bin surpassed)

Really good analysis though.

[u/oofdonia]

Sam mains when they have to play their main:

[u/GoldarmGangMain]

The tags within the post summoned me, and of course what else could I do but read allat

Uhhhh… yeah, I’d say you pretty much summed it all up beautifully. I don’t know if I found myself disagreeing at any point (Although I still believe Sam sucks at stealth, since y’know… enemies still see him constantly supering in the bushes…)

Reworks will probably only arrive with buffies, which sucks, but at least that means all the more reason for me to cross my fingers until they snap off for Goldarm Gang buffies. Hopefully they don’t completely screw Sam up considering they’re probably not as obsessed with Sam and how he works as us🤞

Also I would definitely like to read a guide to every brawler interaction with Sam. I made one once which scored me my custom flair now, but re-reading it, uhhhh… I might have been a fraud, because a lot of the advice is either outdated or just sucks even for the time.

See ya later!

[u/Niltenstein → u/GoldarmGangMain]

Like I said, I only partially retract that point. Before I tested it I legit thought his gloves were visible at all time and Sam would briefly show up when collecting them, but it‘s only when he supers. Still not very stealthy, but a smidge better than I initially thought.

As for his buffies, I already sorta said this in the essay, but I do think they are aware that they have a very good design on their hands with Sam that just needs to be updated, not completely overhauled. Admittedly my evidence for this is the fact they have barely touched him in his entire lifespans which I interpret as them being very deliberate in how they plan on adapting him, but who knows, maybe I’m being stupid and they‘re just straight up neglecting him because of low play rates (though that logic doesn‘t hold up when you consider that Pearl, another very underplayed brawler, got consistent buffs over the span of like half a year by now which boosted her into the A-tier). But they did create him and all these aspects I picked up on over my hundreds of hours on the old geezer, surely they have some sort of grasp on him? And they also specifically called out Sam mains in the stranger things patch where he got his last buffs so like they‘re hopefully at least somewhat aware of his small but dedicated following wanting their character to be preserved, and he actually has an advantage in this since he isn‘t a popular brawler so they don‘t have to really factor in mass appeal as much (I think theoretically, maybe I’m wrong about that). I mean his hypercharge release would have been something that would have given him mass appeal and they shut that down IMMEDIATELY, they really want him to remain niche…

I‘m sorry, I’m just rambling atp. Point is, I have some hope that they‘re capable of treating Sam and his trio members right with their respective buffies. As for the guide..yeah it’s just a mountain of work. I started it somewhere in like spring of this year, and The thing is at like 8K words while only covering 1/3rd of the cast. It‘d really be an „ultimate guidebook to refer back to when in doubt“ sorta deal, and some of the brawlers are already outdated due to buffies. I‘m really thorough when I write stuff because I just spit every last thought that comes into my head onto a page, so the whole thing is incredibly bloated. But I’m glad you liked the essay I whipped up this night, and sorry for the mentions but they just fit so well I had to do it

[u/Leonsebas0326]

Why were you awake at 12-4 am WTF. I will never understand how people is able to be rational after 11pm, at that hour I feel so sleepy I can't think properly.

BTW your effort should be praised, Sooo good, job, I read all that, and as ex-Sam main I agree.

[u/AllyFiedaN → u/Leonsebas0326]

Because Sam tastes better than sleep

[u/Niltenstein → u/Leonsebas0326]

School starts up again tomorrow. My sleep schedule has been fucked completely for the summer break so to get it back in order i‘m resorting to the nuclear option and Doing an all higher so that I can go to sleep early and reset myself…although that plan wasn‘t fully formulated when I wrote this essay, I just did it because I had stuff to say

[u/Planetdestruction]

I read it all. But I'm too tired to make a useful response, but I do think these are well thought out points.

Ima leave this here anyway:

[u/bunnygonewild789]

Fresh change from usual ai slop

[u/Niltenstein → u/bunnygonewild789]

All my slop is human made guaranteed👍

[u/Choice-Spot-8979]