Soul-Boards

[leaderfirestar]

Buffs:

 - Arisawa Tatsuki

• "Fighting Spirit's" damage reduction increased to 10
  
• Giving this skill damage reduction helped her a little bit last patch, so a little more should help a little more right? I have some other ideas for her, but this patch was pretty bug fix heavy, and a few of these balances were a bit more involved. I just ran out of time for her
  

 - Bankai Kenpachi

• "Bankai, Nozarashi" will now grant destructible defense equal to the health lost using the skill
  
• Bankai Kenpachi is a monster. His second skill will neuter pyshical damage characters. The only reason he's struggled is because having a "starting" health of 75 substantially lowers his kill threshold, and by extension, he's usually dealt with quickly. This should help him a little bit
  

 - Final Aizen

• "A New Existence" will now randomize the energy cost of the first 2 energies. This means his skills will all cost 2 colors (or 2 colors and 1 random in "Ultra Fragor's" case
  
• There was a really neat mechanic we had planned for Final Aizen, but due to some engine limitations, that idea had to be scrapped. We made a call to have only one of his energies be a color to try and make him easier to fit in a team. This caused him to be pretty underwhelming. The way I see it, he was going to be a pain to put in a team anyway because you can't count on his costs. You might as well get 2 benefits instead
  

 - Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez

• "Tornado Kick" damage increased by 5 to 30
  
• Grimmjow's win-rate is close to where it should be, he just needs something a little extra. This should do the trick
  

 - Kurotsuchi Mayuri

• "Ashisogi Poison Release" cooldown has been reduced to 2, and the destructible defense granted has been raised to 15
  
• Aside from a few gimmicky teams, Mayuri has felt pretty underwhelming for a while (unless you could get to the late game in a 1v1 where your s1 would stun for several turns). Having a more useful skill available more frequently should help with that
  

 - Metastacia

• "Sealing Tentacles" damage reduced to 25. The damage it reduces has been lowered to 10, decreasing by 5 over 2 turns. This skill can now be used on affected targets (it will refresh the damage debuff)
  
• "Rebirth" rework: If this character would die, their health will be set to 40, and "Metastasis" will end. This skill is invisible. This skill can only be used once.
  
• There's a bit to talk about here. Starting with his first skill, reducing the enemy's damage is a powerful mechanic. You know what is also a powerful mechanic? Actually damaging the enemy! Before this change, you could only use your first skill on an enemy once every 4 turns. 30 damage over 4 turns is pretty awful. Making this character not awful means he has to do damage. With the effect from his skill, I didn't want it to be too powerful, hence the compensation nerfs. As for rebirth, this skill used to revive him anyway (hence the name). He's still a pretty 1-dimensional character anyway that most characters can still play around. This should just help him stick around. Worst comes to worse, I nerf him if he needs it
  

 - Resurreccion Wonderweiss

• "Kaboom's" damage has been buffed to 10 damage plus 5 damage for each turn since centurion has been used
  
• *Unintelligible Wonderweiss Noises* (roughly translates to: This is the worst skill in his kit. It simply takes too long to get going. This should help kick start things)
  

 - Rudbornn Chelute

• "Surround and Eliminate's" damage has been increased to 20 damage
  
• I went back and forth on a couple of ideas for this guy, but decided a damage buff was the least toxic thing I could do while still helping him try to be more relevant. Might do more in the future for him, I might also see him more and remember how frustrating he is to finish when he has 105dd
  

 - Sode No Shirayuki

• Wording for "First Dance, Tsukishiro" has been improved
  
• "Icy Wind" change: All enemies gain 1 freeze counter. For the next 2 turns, all enemies will have their damage lowered by 5 for each freeze counter on them
  
• "Dance of the White Lady" change: Sode no Shirayuki gains 10 destructible defense and 1 blue energy. Target enemy will gain 1 freeze counter
  
• Wording improved. Yay! To the untrained eye, "Icy Wind" received no change. the key change is that "their damage is lowered" instead of "their physical and energy damage." "Dance of the White Lady" change should be pretty easy to figure out
  

 - Sogyo No Kotowari

• "Play With Us" class changed from Physical to Strategic
  
• I had no idea this was a Physical skill until it was pointed out to me by MrSloth. He asked why it was, and I couldn't answer that. There's probably some more impactful changes that could be given to Sogyo, but as BlackZulu has shown, he makes a critical threshold with a couple of characters (and by extension, a solid team)
  

 - Sparrow Uryu

• "Rain of Light" and "Seele Schneider" will each reduce the active cooldown of "Sprenger" by 1 turn
  
• There's no reason for "Sprenger" to have a 3 turn cooldown. This effectively lowers it to a 2 turn cooldown, with the added benefit of making it possible for someone not paying attention to screw up their counting and get countered
  

 - Suzumebachi

• "Flash-Step Marking" change: Suzumebachi targets an enemy permanently, increasing the duration of "Sting All Enemies To Death, Suzumebachi" on them by 1 turn. This skill stacks and ignores invulnerability. For 1 turn, if this target does not use a new non-strategic skill, "Sting Assault" will deal 10 extra damage on this target for 1 turn. If this target does use a new non-strategic skill, "Sting Assault's" cost will be changed to 1 random energy for 1 turn.
  
• "Flash Aura" now makes Suzumebachi ignore all harmful effects except damage (instead of all harmful effects except damage and energy cost changes)
  
• Similar to Wabisuke's interaction with Kira, Suzumebachi originally was meant to aide an ally Soi-fon. As it turns out though, aiding an insta-kill character (or a nuke character) was a bit outside of Suzu's wheelhouse. I think pretending that that was never a thing and just trying to focus on improving Suzu is the best way forward for her if she's ever going to be relevant
  

 - Ushoda Hachigen

• "Gate of the Four Beasts" now reduces all damage (Physical, Energy, Affliction)
  
• "Restoration Barrier's" cost has been reduced to 1 blue, and cooldown has been increased to 3
  
• Similar to the idea with Sode's damage debuff (I'd call it damage reduction, but, y'know), I wanted to give another option for dealing with affliction damage. This man canonically contained Barragan with this skill, that's good enough for me. As for Restoration Barrier, the nerf eons ago made using "Hexagon Seal Array" much more of a chore. Granted, this dude has always been infuriating to deal with, but I think with the death of the Hollow Ichigo meta, there will be more valid strategies in the ladder, including some that can deal with this guy. After all, his annoying skills are actions
  

 - Wabisuke

• "Shoulder the Weight's" cost has been lowered to 1 random
  
• Some pretty "compelling" discussion had been had when I originally buffed this guy regarding this skill. The gist of it is that shoulder the weight was too expensive for what it does. I was optimistic that it was fine. While his win-rate jumped considerably (anything above single digits was unexplored territory for him), it didn't jump enough to fully convince me that he was fixed. This oughta be the final piece of the puzzle
  

Nerfs

 - Ayasegawa Yumichika

• "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku's" cooldown has been increased to 2
  
• "Energy Steal's" cooldown has been increased to 1
  
• During the Hollow Ichigo Reign of Terror, an equally toxic drain team rose. I wasn't entirely sure how I wanted to deal with it, but while I was bug fixing Yumichika, I realized that "Energy Steal" had no cooldown. I nerfed "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku" for good measure (it lasts 3 turns, the only reason this would hurt is if you were countered or if it ended early)
  

 - Hisagomaru

• "Fulfill" stacks are only earned when a character's health goes up
  
• Fuck this guy. This might kill him, but I can buff him then. We all hate that inner ichigo team with this dude
  

 - Hollow Ichigo

• "Overwhelming Cero" no longer grants bonus affliction damage
  
• What a ride this dude has been on. This buff was added however many patches ago to experiment with bonus affliction damage teams. Then my buff to "Hunt!" caught people's attention, and they discovered that rather than utilize "Hunt!" they could just grab yamamoto and shinji to deal 20 + ( 5 (+5) + 5 (+5) ) * 2 = 60 aoe damage over 2 turns (stunning non-strategic skills on turn 1) for the cost of 3 skills. This nerf should gut that damn team. I have more nerfs I can do for this guy, but we're sneaking up on where he was pre-buff, which is kind of poetic
  

 - Hyorinmaru

• Attacking Hyorinmaru while "Dragon Form" is active will no longer cause you to deal 5 less non-affliction damage for 3 turns
  
• "Freezing Breath's" effect to increase active cooldowns will only last for 1 turn
  
• Having harmful effects you place on a character get removed is annoying. So is trying to kill the target and getting your damage lowered while doing it. So is getting your cooldowns raised while doing it. I'm not sure I hit everything that needed hit with this guy, but it should make him more manageable
  

 - Resurreccion Harribel

• "Hirviendo" no longer reduces non-affliction damage dealt by enemies by 5. The damage threshold to gain a random energy has been increased to 30
  
• Of all of the characters in this game to balance, Resurreccion Harribel is one of them. Certainly one of the more challenging ones. Her skills are already expensive, her stuns are already action skills. Her aoe stun requires a 2 energy prep to even get access to the skill, and 3 more energy to use it. Her damage isn't incredible either. Nerfing any of those things would cripple her, so I nerfed what could reasonably be nerfed
  

Tweaks

 - Haineko

• "Swift cut" now deals 20 piercing damage. During "Growl, Haineko," "Swift Cut" will cost 1 random energy. It no longer deals 10 bonus damage during "Growl, Haineko."
  
• This tweak should allow her to be a little more useful while "Growl, Haineko" is active
  

Random tip: Invulnerability does not mean immune to damage. Invulnerability means you cannot target that character (unless your skill ignores invulnerability). Ignoring damage, like with Hollow Ichigo's "Rage Shield" will prevent him from being damaged

Noteworthy Bug Fixes:

• Yumichika's skills now change back if "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku" kills the target on cast
  
• Yumichika no longer targets himself with "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku" (preventing his skills from swapping back) if he uses "Blooming Flower" immediately after "Split and Deviate, Ruri'iro Kujaku" kills its target
  
• Fixed massive issue with the logic disabling and enabling skills which would cause skills to be able to be used when they shouldn't be sometimes. This includes Hisagi's "Explosive Bands," Grimmjow's "Caja Negacion," passive skills, etc
  
• Inner Ichigo's "Inner Ichigo Combat" no longer ends Final Form Uryu's "Spirit Particle Subjugation"
  
• Shinji's alternative "Collapse, Sakanade" cost now increases as expected when his primary version triggers effects such as "Super Human Drug"
  
• Resurreccion Szayel's "Gabriel" now damages enemies that kill him with insta-kill skills
  
• Resurreccion Szayel's "Gabriel" only damages if he isn't ignoring the helpful effect
  
• Fixed issue where characters that cannot be killed or would be revived to a health were ignoring "ignore helpful" effects and not dying
  
• Shinji's "Inverted World" can no longer be countered/reflected
  
• Kirikaze now goes invulnerable before damage when affected by "Mist Transformation"
  
• Kirikaze's "Mist Transformation" now checks if he's ignoring relevant helpful effects before making him invulnerable
  
• Final Aizen's "Suigetsu Fusion" now correctly checks if he's ignoring relevant helpful effects
  
• All helpful counter skills now check if they've been stolen by Tsukishima to prevent him from countering himself the turn after he steals the counter
  
• Hitsugaya's destructible defense tooltip from "Frozen Chain Wrap" now correctly disappears when he has 0 destructible defense. If you see other skills not doing this correctly, please let me know, it's a pet peeve
  
• Reflecting Segunda's "Cero Sneak" no longer crashes the game
  
• Fixed instance where Shinji's "Sword Rotation" tooltip would say "Inverted World"
  
• Cleaned up Shinji's "Inverted World" and "Sword Rotation" tooltips so they will disappear the turn after they end (no more seeing both tooltip and getting confused which one was used)
  

[Literally_Rock_Lee]

So, what effect does this have on the tournament?

[leaderfirestar]

So, what effect does this have on the tournament?

If you use any of the buffed characters, they'll be a little stronger. The nerfed characters will be a little weaker

[Literally_Rock_Lee]

So, what effect does this have on the tournament?

If you use any of the buffed characters, they'll be a little stronger. The nerfed characters will be a little weaker

Okay so no new bans  These were characters I don't use on a regular basis.

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Just a note: Grimmjow's tornado kick description hasn't been fixed.