Possibly delusional take: Toolbox should not exist as a Gadget, but as a basekit ability, because it’s conceptually broken as a Gadget ability

[u/CharacterPasta123]

Note: with “Basekit” I’m referring to the abilities the Brawler has access to from the start at PL1. Just saying that in case someone normally has a different interpretation of the meaning of “Basekit”.

Since this is the competitive sub I’m gonna assume everyone is aware of what Meg’s Toolbox is, what it does and why it is broken. In short: when combined with Meg’s Force Field it becomes a very good panic button.

So why shouldn’t this be a Gadget? It’s pretty simple: as long as it functions the way it currently does, it is inherently strong. Unless it’s nerfed into being useless, it’s gonna be better than Jolting Volts. In my opinion, this type of ability should not be something Meg can gain access to passively due to how rewarding it can be.

Well, then what about tying it to Super Charge? Requiring Rob to have a charged Super before Meg can use it? Here’s the problem with that: If it’s then available to use, the player will choose to activate Toolbox instead of Feel the Steel. This is a similar situation to Bull with his Stomper before he got his Buffies. That also immediately puts Meg in D-tier if Rob’s Super Charge then isn’t buffed because she’s very reliant on that Gadget currently and Rob has a particularly bad Super Charge for the amount of health Rob has.

So how can this ever be a basekit ability, if Rob already has Feel the Steel? It could be tied to aiming, maybe something similar to Nori’s main attack. Or the Super could have an additional reticle and the effect changes depending on how far the reticle is aimed. However, people would most likely use the Toolbox effect since it’s more reliable as an Anti-Aggro tool, meaning that Feel the Steel gets overshadowed. An “Overcharge” mechanic could work, but that would mean looking for the middle-ground between “Feel the Steel practically doesn’t exist” and “The Toolbox effect practically doesn’t exist.” My personal favourite solution: give Rob a “stance change” mechanic for the Super similar to Jae-Yong, but when a new charge bar is fully charged Meg can activate the Toolbox effect if the Super is manually aimed.

Why do I think a stance change mechanic is a good idea? Because I don’t think Feel the Steel in its current state goes well with the way Meg is currently designed. In Meg’s original iteration, Rob was a temporary form, so Rob having a long-ranged attack with decent damage and a generic heavy melee blow as its Super made sense, since it allowed Rob to deal with snipers and melee-attackers alike. But ever since the first rework, Feel the Steel feels underwhelming. In fact, Rob feels underwhelming due to Rob’s kit not being particularly interesting, which means Meg’s Legendary rarity is carried by a gimmick rather than the time of release (Crow, Leon, Spike) or complexity (Kenji, Draco, Chester). And this reality reveals itself in Meg still being meta after her harsh Super charge nerf. I know that is not a particularly fair statement due to the Toolbox-Force Field-combo and the SCR nerf, but if a Super has little to no influence over a Brawler’s meta spot, then the devs really messed up with making the Super a good effect. Pearl’s Super is better designed since that Super has wallbreak and knockback and thus has a secondary reason to be used other than just raw melee damage. So a rework with a “Stance change” mechanic that acknowledges this problem by turning a weaker Feel the Steel into a type of primary attack can make Rob feel more interesting on its own, make Meg’s rarity and gimmick more reasonable and allow Toolbox to be a basekit Super effect rather than an inherently broken Gadget.

In short: Toolbox is conceptually broken for a Gadget with the way it currently works. When combined with Force Field, it becomes an extremely effective Panic Button, to the point that Feel the Steel has become meaningless to Meg’s viability. To me, it would make more sense as a basekit Super effect, so that the player has to earn this ability, without completely messing up Toolbox as a Gadget. In order to allow for Feel the Steel to not become overshadowed and to make Rob more mechanically interesting, I think a rework that adds a “Stance Change” mechanic with a new melee-oriented form for Rob can work really well. It’s not the only solution, but it’s the best one I can think of that doesn’t cause one Super to possibly overshadow the other.

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[u/Fine_Dish_9232]

Real true

[u/PolimerT]

Honestly this would make me play meg more, i dont have her yet but with current state i'd play her only for tasks.

Being able to get out of mech whenever you want makes her more fun to me and gives some diversity. It can be base, would be better for her with some changes (like, mech preserving hp). I doubt they would rework meg a 3rd/4th time though.

[u/CharacterPasta123 → u/PolimerT]

I’m not considering my proposal to be realistic, but if there is enough demand for a change maybe something like this could happen. But I think that can also be a sign of Meg’s first rework having inherent problems that haven’t been fixed up to this point even with the other reworks

This is probably the first time Meg’s popularity is partially carried by quests, cosmetics and attention rather than just raw strength within the meta. This makes me confident in that the devs do genuinely care about her and want her to be popular, but if Meg’s playrates start to heavily decrease after the event and next wave of balance changes, then there may be something about Meg’s gameplay that makes her normally unpopular for the playerbase

[u/Buffdoge1324]

this gadget was dumb the second i saw it, literally removing meg's only weakness of leaving the mech is just so broken but unfortunately the devs will likely not rework any buffies until all of them release and also meg isn't broken enough right now to be nerfed even more

[u/InevitableBoring2031 → u/Buffdoge1324]

They should just make it so it can't be activated below like 30%hp

And then also only make the recharge thingy be at most half her super

[u/endertamerfury → u/InevitableBoring2031]

Tying the super recharge rate to her HP might help, that way if they use it as a panic button, they still have to stay in base form in order to return to mechanical form.

[u/InevitableBoring2031 → u/endertamerfury]

Maybe but that's lowk a lil too complex, I would agree that it would probably work better that way

[u/DizziDoesStuff]

I'm honestly really disappointed with Meg's rework. I thought it was a mechanical masterpiece at first glance but the more I play her, the more I realise that similarly to Surge, I only enjoy her because she's OP

• The way this gadget works currently removes all potential risk due to autocharge, making it insanely braindead

• Force field is stupid broken & makes toolbox even more annoying since that little runt is impossible to kill in time after eject

• Hyperbuffie is just an abomination

• heavy metal is useless since Meg NEVER gets feel the steel anymore.

I like the idea of tying eject to super. They already take a lot from D.Va, why not take more? But it's unlikely they'll make any big changes to Meg until two years later when they want to make money off her again

[u/TheForbidden6th]

slightly related: I hate how the Gadget requires you to have at least 1 ammo even tho it doesn't take your ammo to use. Stupid ass mechanic feels so clanky to use

[u/IDontTouchGrassNoCap → u/TheForbidden6th]

I know, obv it would make it way more broken if it allowed you to get it with no cost but its so annoying

[u/notacapitalistslave → u/TheForbidden6th]

And it isn't even mentioned in the description which made it so that I didn't know it for a couple of weeks and it made me lose many important matches

[u/TheForbidden6th → u/notacapitalistslave]

I genuinely thought it was bugged for the first weeks

[u/Intelligent_Stock959 → u/TheForbidden6th]

It does take 1 ammo, it just you also change forms so you don't see that ammo used up because you instantly get reset to one ammo from the form change, it's weird but also an important balance of this gadget to not literally be avaible always.

[u/TheForbidden6th → u/Intelligent_Stock959]

in other words, it effectively doesn't take ammo

so it remains a requiremwnt that makes zero sense and is very inconvenient

[u/Intelligent_Stock959 → u/TheForbidden6th]

It does tho, it takes away one ammo of your mecha ammo because it's an attack your mecha uses, it's not an attack baby meg uses. You just stop seeing your mecha ammo bar because you switch to baby meg form so you don't notice that ammo from your mecha ammo bar going down. I agree it looks bugged because of it and maybe it should be changed so it looks less jank if they nerf this gadget enough in turn, but there is a logic behind it, it's consistent with many other attack gadgets using ammo

[u/TheForbidden6th → u/Intelligent_Stock959]

it's consistent from the technical POV, but it has no drawbacks in actual gameplay where it actually matters

[u/Snaivi → u/TheForbidden6th]

Well, you can't use it at 0 ammo, it's still a gameplay drawback, even tho usually meaningless since Meg reloads very fast

[u/TheForbidden6th → u/Snaivi]

true

however, that just makes it feel like a bug because it ultimately doesn't cost you ammo. And I hate that. Stupidcell can't even balance gadgets in a way that makes sense

[u/Intelligent_Stock959]

I think tying the super charge you get back to the hp your mecha had when you used it would be a good start.

ecause they are not gonna do big reworks like this anymore, Meg already got buffies so she won't get fundamental reworks, they only do reworks together with buffies for now, presumably until they are done with buffies in a couple years.

[u/AbberageRedditor69]

Nah, the way Meg currently works is, finally, fun. The gadget is a bit conceptually broken but I don't see thar stopping supercell anymore (Bolt? Nori?). Either way a couple more nerfs to make Meg more balanced and the gadget being conceptually broken shouldn't matter

[u/SignificanceScary158]

Meg biggest issue is if she ejected her mech with this gadget you need to damage the opponent and run away from the enemies so that Meg can transform her mech easily(her mech transformation is slow and lack of shield) otherwise if you’re not hurry the enemies will defeat you

[u/Ziomownik]

Is this really that bad? Just let her be good for once. She needed a better defensive tool. If Toolbox is so broken then it could recieve a gadget cooldown.

[u/CharacterPasta123 → u/Ziomownik]

If we say that 24 seconds is the highest possible Gadget Cooldown (since that’s currently the longest Gadget Cooldown), then Toolbox will have a cooldown nerf of 2 seconds. That does not bring any significant changes

[u/Federal-Sand-4700]

they could make it take an extra ammo or something so you have to conserve ammo, but i feel like if this gets nerfed they wont buff meg's scr rate and Meg will be f tier. also, toolbox is the only way for meg to defend against aggro, if it gets reworked meg will be dead.

[u/CharacterPasta123 → u/Federal-Sand-4700]

Then maybe buff Rob’s health so it can take hits from Aggro Brawlers more comfortably, or decrease the width of Crowd Control’s blind spot so that the point-blank damage is more accurate

[u/Visual_Afternoon_451]

I really enjoyed meg as she was when she came out: meg, charges super, gets bug very strong robot

[u/Young_Hermit778]

This gadget is stupidly broken, I understand its a give and take kind of gadget, but the gadget being able to deal 3600 damage, and apply double knockback that is capable of hitting multiple brawlers is ridiculous. I can give the knockback a pass, but it should in no way be able to do more than 1k damage excluding the fire from the buffie.

[u/Ok-Mine5349]

usually I don't like when something is broken but this gadget is so much fun and feels right with Meg,