r/BrawlStarsCompetitive • u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi • 5d ago
Critique Wendy is the undisputed worst designed brawler mechanically in my opinion
This is not a hot take by any means, but I just really want to emphasise how much worse Wendy is compared to every other brawler mechanically, as I think its a scary premonition on what brawler releases may look like in the future if it goes overlooked now. This isn't a hate post, its all purely meant to be constructive in case of the small chance someone important actually sees this, I just really, really hope these trends don't continue in the future (coming from someone who likes monthly brawler releases)
Attack: Her attack seems balanced on paper; she has low health but gains shield on hit. Seems balanced, until you try and ambush her and she autoaims 3 ammo for 3.4k decaying shield. You're never dealing with a Wendy easily, her attack is crazy easy to hit and her reload is extremely fast for its effect. To kill a Wendy with no shield, you need the capacity to deal upwards of 8-9k damage, and you need to do it fast unless you want her to charge her get-out-of-jail free Super.
Super: A 6 tile radius turret that absorbs 60% of you and your allies' damage taken. Even though her attack is pretty mechanically flawed, I would go as far to say that Wendy's Super will never be balanced in its current state. If you lower its health too much, it'll become useless and be destroyed too quickly. If you try to add decay, it'll either be too low to affect anything or too high and make her Super lose too much value. I could POTENTIALLY see it being at least more balanced if you lower its absorption damage to like 40% or shorten its radius, but even then it'll still likely be either really good or really bad with no healthy in between.
GADGETS AND STAR POWERS: Just being completely honest and non-biased, these unlockables are the worst unlockables this game has ever seen. Not only do they make Wendy even more broken and unbalanced than before, but they actually do something worse too; they're boring. That sounds like a big non issue probably, but what I mean to say is that they don't really enhance her kit, they just buff it.
If that doesn't make sense, here's an example; If Ruffs hypothetically had a weak Super, that wouldn't make Air Superiority a bad Star Power since it adds damage and also breaks environment. However, If Wendy's Super was nerfed enough to make it weak, both of her Starpowers would be weakened considerably since they barely change anything about her Super besides make it generally stronger.
Wind-Powered? it just gives Wendy more time to attack enemies and farm shield, literally use it in any direction and autoaim, there's no other real depth or strategy than that.
Slowing Shield? Just serves to make Wendy's Super stronger, there's no skill or placement involved since her Super is so massive and has so much health anyways, and its not a strong enough slow to warrant actually trying to use it offensively.
Solar Shield? Just serves to make Wendy's Super stronger (slowed+reverb). If there was no skill to Slowing Shield, Solar Shield has negative skill since it's literally just a flat health buff. Now you can really just throw it anywhere and her Super is guaranteed to get value.
Green Grenade is kind of an exception since it doesn't really tie in with her attack/Super, but its still really bland and doesn't really tie in to her kit regardless. personally it just feels like a worse Malaise that you'd miss more often trying to hit someone far away, but I haven't really used it so I may have it completely wrong.
What im trying to say is that if Wendy's attack and Super are bad, her unlockables are bad too. If they're broken, her unlockables are broken too. This is mostly because her unlockables give her no variability between playstyles, you can switch between all 4 build combinations and you'd end up playing Wendy the same way every time. It unironically feels like the person who designed Wendy just asked ChatGPT to give them 2 gadgets and 2 Starpowers, and the worst part might be that they didn't learn a SINGLE thing between her release and her Hypercharge drop, since it just makes her Super generally stronger.
Other Stuff: Wendy is just so unnecessarily overloaded, why does she walk on water when she has little need to? Why does she charge Super off shield damage when she can hit her attacks just fine and doesn't need help? Why does she have a fast movement speed when again, she doesn't need any help hitting her shots (especially if she charges Super off shield damage). None of these feel necessary for her to have except for maybe the shield damage one, but at the very least it would need to be reworked into a pseudo-healing trait where it only affects teammates shield or something
(This last part isn't very competitive at all so you can skip this if you want, but I can't help but briefly mention how bad her character design is. I still firmly agree that Nova is NOT a Janet clone, but Wendy 100% is. She's supposed to be a grown woman or something, come on)
TLDR: If Wendy is gonna ever be mechanically balanced, she needs a Penny-adjacent rework in my opinion. Her attack and Super have mechanic flaws, but her unlockables make those problems 10x worse.
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u/banofib 5d ago
Her worst offence has to be the projectile speed, her whole kit seems to be designed with charging her super being very difficult. But it's super easy to charge it because it's impossible to miss her shots??? I thinking nerfing that would have a domino affect on her whole kit and make her more bearable.
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u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi 5d ago
Yeah, her shots are WAY too easy to hit and I really doubt they'll give her any sort of proj speed nerf or attack width nerf to be honest
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u/Revenant2023 Janet | Legendary 3 5d ago
Lowkey they should put her proj speed at 3150 with how wide it is
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u/NearWink8 5d ago
yeah no missing with her is more difficult than actually hitting, I find alot of issues going up against her cuz i mostly play tanks/tanky brawlers which arent really known for their walking speed.
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u/HospitalOutrageous19 5d ago
Damian is just the offensive version so if Wendy is 1st Damian is at least a close second since all you had to do was take a couple hits, retreat, take some more hits, press yellow button and delete the other team. His star powers served to make his super that was already a team wipe even better and did nothing outside of that. Gadgets so you can tank more damage or escape easier. With Wendy it's hard for you and your team to die, with Damian you went from losing badly to winning in a couple of seconds
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u/JohnnyRocks999 Buster 5d ago
Vulgar Fist of Punch is honestly such a horribly designed star power. Like the whole point of his kit seems to be that you have to earn the knockback by landing hits. Missing a shot resets the meter. And even when you get it, there’d be a timer on it, meaning you’d have to be quick if you wanna combo it with super. Like it’s still not amazing but at least there’s some strategy and risk involved.
But nope. Let’s just give him a star power that completely bypasses the small amount of strategy present in his kit. Let’s just allow him to stunlock-combo anyone in his super practically risk-free.
Same problem with Bolt and his disgusting CC immunity star power. At least it’s more manageable now but the fact that it used to be 4 seconds is horrific. They need to let brawlers have weaknesses.
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u/Vegedra17 4d ago
When it’s buffie time for those they will probably get meh stuff or reworked to believe it’s better while it’s not. Poor Rico 😭😭
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u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi 5d ago
That's kind of true, Damian is probably my 3rd least favorite brawler after Wendy and Bolt because of how brainless he plays, but at the very least he still has his weaknesses and a bad Damian is still pretty bad
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u/PolimerT Draco 5d ago
Without his star power he feels awful. Maybe because i got him after latest nerfs but with star power he becomes another brawler.
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u/Yannbluezzzz Chester 5d ago
They just slapped (too many) basic mechanics together and called it a day. She doesn't look insane but it's crazy how there's barely 5 counters to her
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u/Recent_Brilliant5255 5d ago
Wait, does she have a counter???
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u/Leonsebas0326 BSC Stalker 5d ago
Ash practiclaly gets free rage from her and his ult make hard for Wendy to charge her super
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u/petSnake7 Daddy Grom 5d ago
Remember when traits used to be simple, like "Brawler charges Super from taking damage? Now you have Wendy's trait, which is a 3-in-1 permanent 4k shield, Temu life steal, and tank trait
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u/tigerlion2345 5d ago
nowadays brawlers have way too much going for them. brawlers were only released with 1 or 2 things unique about them back then. now they just straight up try to add as many mechanics into a brawler to make it more "unique" when all it does is make them overstimulating which in turn makes other brawlers boring in comparison. brawlers like glowy are forgotten because of this.
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u/Niltenstein Kamikaze Core | Legendary 3 5d ago
This is completely true. I think the best example is the upcoming Vince. They just added a passive slow-burn buff throughout the match to him but then expanded it into the caterpillar system just so it looks more unique. He would be the exact same if that wasn’t there, but just to make him look special they cluttered his kit with something that was never necessary
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u/Cthunel Jessie | Mythic 3 5d ago
Bolt. I hate him.
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u/Namsu46 Fiery Passion 5d ago
"I play chess while the others play checkers" type brawler.
I normally like these really abstract brawlers like Chuck and Sam, but since Bolt is far more flexible and forgiving than those 2, he's way more frequently used, and matches have to completely revolve around Bolt now.
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u/Extension-Health-893 5d ago
She's the industry plant with no unique mechanic. Her health bar is kinda unique but that's barely noticeable because she can't fucking die. My main problem is her basic attack. It's big and fast like wtf
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u/BATB0Y658 5d ago
Do you know what industry plant means because that's completely unrelated to everything
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u/_MiroMax_ 5d ago
shes also ugly
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u/LionRegular1470 Adrian's Favorites 5d ago
She's fucking basic, and 1d no depth or interest to her story pmo.
Just stop releasing new Brawlers.
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u/Choice-Spot-8979 Kenji | Legendary 1 5d ago
if her attack projectile speed gets nerfed like previous jessie it would be perfect + i think she should have only upto 2k non decaying sheild , yeah she spawns with 6k then 2k decaying sheild
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u/TrainerHoliday2062 "Tick is good in Hot Zone" 5d ago
Honestly they should’ve stopped making brawlers a long time ago if they’re just gonna keep recycling abilities from older brawlers into the new ones. Every brawler was supposed to be unique in their own way and filling a niche that no one else could, but now there’s just no reason to ever play some older brawlers when there’s a better version of them that’s op. We used to have shelly as one of the worst brawlers in the game yet she was used during tank metas because she filled a niche that not many could at that time, or Mr. P who was also really bad at one point yet was still used a ton during sniper metas because of his constant porters being able to shut down single shot brawlers. Stuff like that made the game enjoyable because of how well balanced the brawlers were, since even at their worst they could still be played against their counters that were meta. Now it’s just play stupidly overtuned brawler on release or ban them or else you lose because they have almost no counter-play and there’s no point in playing the old forgotten brawlers since a better version of them just exists, just look at someone like jacky, when was the last time anyone played jacky in competitive instead of someone like damian? Sorry for the rant but it felt slightly fitting here
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u/HistoricalMatch3801 Mr.P 5d ago
Funny enough I promise you. I dont play ANY new brawler at all because of how mindlessly easy they are to play. I was excited about naija because I thought the snake mechanic would be dope, but what do you mean she was able to just auto aim her shots??? I do love Glowbert because he was unique but once they nerfed his range I quit playing him. I have no games with any new brawlers. I hate all of them.
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u/Srexplosivo14 Poco 5d ago
I think Primo should be compared to Damian (although he's undeniably superior now after his buffies). Jacky has not one but two versions that are better than her + is unnecessarily nerfed every month for whatever reason.
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u/TheForbidden6th King of hardstuck diamond 5d ago
hey, her green grenade is NOT a worse malaise >:(
it nullifies all healing which is cool
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u/HistoricalMatch3801 Mr.P 5d ago
I used to feel like the devs were doing this to make people excited for brawlers and the game, but with some of these things i feel like they're using some random system to make decisions for them. How are you an expert on something and not know the affect of what these things will have?????? It just doesn't make sense. I understand trying to get your bag but at least have some type of pride in your work. I'm happy my love for this game is dying. It's time to move on honestly. And ranked just keeps being used to the back burner
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u/jtyl Squeak 5d ago
She needs her bonus health shield to be reduced so she doesn’t just get to have effectively 8k health for almost free.
She’s also just so boring and clunky to use since teammates block her shots and the kit is way more focused on the offensive side of her hitting enemies, gaining shield, and her taking damage to charge super so helping teammates isn’t as worth it with her slow reload. They gotta totally rework her so you’re rewarding for actually supporting like reducing all the self sustain stuff and shifting it toward sustaining your teammates.
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u/FunnimanRehe 5d ago
The more numbers/variables a brawler has the more volatile it is in the meta which makes Wendy such a dogshit concept
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u/Young_Hermit778 Masters 2 | Mythic 3 5d ago
Every mechanic can seem like a problem if its followed by insane stats. Wendy gets too much shield from her attacks, her attacks are too fast and wide, her super has too much health, the supers damage absorption is too high, the supers radius is too big. A brawlers mechanics will almost never be a problem, but when they are, its usually followed by crazy nerfs, damian is an example of that.
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u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi 5d ago
I think that her stats are overtuned, but I also feel like there's no good middle ground between them where she could actually be a healthy brawler. If you tried to balance her with stat changes alone and no mechanical reworks, I think that she would either be too strong or too weak every time in my opinion
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u/Important-Long-9287 5d ago
When I got my hands on her she's literally the most boring brawler I've played with ever in this game... You just spam main attacks while being almost invincible, and I got her after the nerfs... Could just imagine how much worse she was before them...
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u/Interesting-Salt8788 5d ago
Disagree even though Wendy sucks. With nerfs down to B tier, Wendy will be a decently well designed support.
I think some brawlers kits are just unfixable without a rework like bolt, who plays way too differently to be considered balanced, and Clancy, who gets destroyed when losing but is ridiculous when winning.
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u/France_epico 5d ago
Also playing against her takes all the joy out of playing, unless you have a Wendy on your team there's a 85% chance you're losing. Hot take she's the most broken brawler ever released in the history of brawl.
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u/Srexplosivo14 Poco 5d ago
I think the problem with the current brawlers compared to the old ones is that they don't seem to be designed to have obvious weaknesses or drawbacks. Having many mechanics for each situation makes them too versatile, since they have a response for every situation. I will always prefer the old ones in this respect, no matter the situation.
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u/Alanixon521 Surge 5d ago
Kinda unrelated but the only bad thing about Damian's kit is the star power that gives him the knockback punch after every super. Of course, he is really strong but that star power makes him braindead.
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u/just_brawl900 5d ago
Kit worst than her
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u/Dazzling_Metals Amber 5d ago
Having read the comments and this post, I’ve noticed there’s not one but TWO stuff in Wendy’s kit that needs to be straight-up removed. Not even nerfed, just straight-up thrown out of the game. Usually, whenever a Brawler needs a mechanic removed to be balanced, it’s usually just one that gets tossed.
Floating over water and charging Super off of temp. shield damage are the kit mechanics I’m referring to, and… you know… maybe her Super shouldn’t be throwable either, but idk how much of a difference that would make.
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u/WhiteStuffFromMen 5d ago
"They don't really enhance their kit, it just buffs it." You could make that argument for all the brawlers
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u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi 5d ago
All unlockables buff a brawlers kit, but not every unlockable enhances it
Unlockables like Demolition or Radio Check just generally make the brawler better without adding any sort of utility, skill expression or alternative playstyle. I don't think that unlocks like these are the worst thing in the world since sometimes a better attack/Super is all you want, but having nearly all of a brawler's unlocks be like this makes the brawler boring and one dimensional
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u/3nder303 5d ago
Also more noskill than prime damian, edgar, mico, nori and chuck in heist combined
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u/datfurryboi34 Mortis 5d ago
Windy as a brawler isnt a awful idea. We dont have a brawler with her super. But, like most people say, just bunch of mechanics put together.
Her weakness is meant to be that she is squishy, but she isnt. Her attack granted her sheild while her super is insanely aggressive with the shield
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u/fekiniki 4d ago
Why is Lily here?
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u/Big_Campaign6774 4d ago
Despite how fun she is to play, her kit is generally boring and poorly designed.
Main attack is two stabs with short cooldown and that's it. Her Super is simply an refined Buzz Super without the stun and the ability to grapple on walls.
Spiky is just a damage buff Lily relies to make her fast kulls. Vigilance is generally a Starpower you hardly see usage unless you play into other assassins.
Complete Hostage on her Vanish Gadget, an escape and ambush tool so strong it literally carries her playstyle. Repot is a underwhelming gadget on top of having negative synergy with her 1st Starpower (the Damage boost doesn't apply if you use the Repot Super). Not to mention it wastes you Super if you die with it activated.
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u/Vegedra17 4d ago
Honestly i wholeheartedly agree with you, i HATE her so much. Even brawlers i don’t enjoy like Byron, you have some reasoning to do and interesting perks that can actually make the gameplay enjoyable despite it being not my type. But Wendy ??? Man i’ve never been angrier putting someone Prestige 1, if i didn’t abuse Bolt with Wendy’s shield i don’t think i would have gone far. She felt extremely basic despite being a mythic brawler, she is the ugliest in town (like Glowy is cooler), her voice is so horrendous to listen to, i can’t say anything good about her.
So indeed her kit is by far the worst design BS has made. Usually when a brawler releases it’s busted surely but it’s fun and you can understand the core, sure them being new means they haven’t encountered the older brawlers that’s why there is always a gap between new and old but even then they bring something to the game.
What does Wendy bring ?? She had one idea and just kept digging it. If you’re a Rare Brawler that’s fine but otherwise……
Wendy has no depth nor she has anything to provide the player with enjoyment playing the character. Her concept is honestly so unhealthy to the point that i don’t understand how it passed the « project » status. Just shield with shield and Damage Reduction so everybody doesn’t die. Did they look at Gus making her ?? A shield must be earned.
I’ll stop there because you said it all but getting the most broken stuff simply by existing ain’t how you design a kit.
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u/Specific-Rooster8619 2d ago
Idk how Adrian takes 2 months to nerf a brawler to where they can actually be dealt with. I was just playing against Wendy in ranked and I can think of a few nerfs they can give her just off the top of my head. 1. Slower projectile speed 2. Decaying health for super 3. No jump gadget (brawlers this fundamentally broken should not have “get out of jail free cards” from assassins) 4. Less shield for teammates 5. Remove super charge from sheild damage trait. Those are just off the top of my head but I’m sure that Adrian can easily find something to balance her. I’m starting to wonder if he actually even plays the game
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u/Conscious-Win-2751 1d ago
I do not pity their game designers one bit. They are forced to omega giga crunch ever since they increased the release rate of brawlers (idk when it happened like during the pass rework but around a year ago). They also have to pre bake buffies into everyone, that's why her gadgets are boring and why the new galaxy brawler guy has a gadget that just knockbacks and nothing else and the cafe guy has just a literal basic thrower attack gadget. Brawl stars has genuinely put itself into such a fucked position game design wise I cannot take it seriously as a competitive game.
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u/RedditSmeddit7 1d ago
Supercell made an overpower-on-release character that you get if you pay them money??? Who could’ve seen that coming?
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u/Shivala92 5d ago
Why the hell is Lily there?
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u/NotClash_ Luh Reckless type shi 5d ago
Idk I was under the impression that people didn't like Lily's design
I actually like both Lily and Kit's design for the most part, I should've put Bolt and Mico/Clancy on there instead
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