Dani Moonstar Rebalancing Ideas

Hello! I just watched Vega’s latest video overviewing the changes to Dani’s kit on the content creator beta. Basically, the biggest change was that her neuroshocks immediately apply upon special activation when fighting skill champs and also a slight bump to her slow duration. I really like this change, but I think a bit more is needed to make her meet her goals. This is especially true now that Onslaught is in the game. He has more utility, damage, and defensive capabilities than Dani, and I’m concerned that she will be overshadowed by the biggest and red-est mutant in the game in the upcoming months.

A big focus of Dani’s is lining up your specials just right: having 5 arrows loaded, 5 passive prowesses, and 5 prowess buffs all ready to go. This takes a lot of setup, and the reward doesn’t feel super impactful once the overload or energy vulnerability falls off. If you don’t manage to take down your opponent in that time frame, you have to start it all over again. I propose that if you fully line up the special (three stacks of 5) you get an indefinite, slightly more powerful, non stacking version of the overload or vulnerability on the final hit of the special attack. This way, you can keep the damage going. You also won’t have to worry about cycling to another s2 once the overload ends if you want to keep the s1 slow up for the rest of the fight. Alternatively, for more damage, you drop an s1 for the vulnerability and maintain s2s for the rest of the fight. For spamming s2s to make sense once an indefinite overload is already applied, adding some extra on-hit energy damage to the bullets could feel really good.

Ultimately, I think her kit is engaging and her animations are stellar (art team don’t miss), but given the current state of her rotation and damage output, I don’t see her staying competitively viable once Onslaught is more accessible. Since she’s got decent utility but not the best defense, I think making her a more powerful attacker would be very fair. Indefinite effects are very satisfying to play with, and I think that’s the perfect kind of payoff for her if you manage to skillfully set up her special attack. Kabam, I hope you take into account some of my suggestions when looking at Dani’s kit. And if anyone else has some ideas, drop them down below!

Comments

Sparty6

Excellent points. She needs more. More time on slow. Your extension of overload idea is a great start. If it is just the two small tweaks proposed she will be arena fodder and it would be a failed buff.

Colinwhitworth69

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.

DragonBoii

I think currently she has 3 major problems. I know before we've been told that Dani is on the "higher end" of damage output for the mutant class, but putting this into perspective if she's say third, who's she competing with for third? Toad? It's just not a fair metric and I think this is why the buff was decided to be so unimpactful. Looking at her against say ROL WS, she has pretty good damage for sure on the higher end, but right now I'm actually difficult fights, say glad circuit or AW, she is far too inconsistent.

First major issue is her sp1 utility. In any real fight it's extremely difficult to successfully achieve as the thread author mentioned. And even if you're the fintech of Dani, the payoff just.. isn't worth it at all. So either making it worth the time to perfect this or making it more reliable is needed, which they started to do with the buff but realistically she needs much more than 2 seconds.

Second is her damage NEEDS A 6* GAMBIT RELIC. Her damage is ok without it, but it's the same deal as someone like cap iw, except cap was good for his utility which she lacks outside one or two very specific fights (nf). But making her damage almost a half or lower of what it could/should be being locked behind getting a 6* gambit relic doesn't make much sense to me. It doesn't have to be "free crits" but maybe if she special intercepts, her sp2 is guaranteed crit, or if they have the sp1 debuffs her sp2 gets a lot of critical rating. Just something to make it more consistent.

Finally, having an anti anti miss would be really nice. There are a lot of skill champs who have anti miss built in (korg, nf, etc) who kind of defeat the whole purpose of Dani. Obviously I'm not saying a kitty pryde 2.0, but maybe against skill champs if they would fail her miss she passively stuns them or something?

All things considered as OP said, she's super cool and a lot of people who voted for her were looking forward to her, and I really like the idea of a high skill pure attacker mutant, and really hope she gets some more major changes in the near future

RockSlyde

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.

She and Onslaught are the only two champs (currently) with access to neuroshock, and they both are designed to benefit or atleast circumvent tenacity. Just about every fight that Dani’s utility works well for, Onslaught does it better (with the only exception being NF, kind of). The fact that Onslaught handles Dani’s matchups better than she does, as well as a TON of other fights, means she’s going to get shelved the moment someone gets their hands on Onslaught. I think it would be very sad for Dani to simply get replaced, and a proper tune up would prevent that

DragonBoii

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.
She and Onslaught are the only two champs (currently) with access to neuroshock, and they both are designed to benefit or atleast circumvent tenacity. Just about every fight that Dani’s utility works well for, Onslaught does it better (with the only exception being NF, kind of). The fact that Onslaught handles Dani’s matchups better than she does, as well as a TON of other fights, means she’s going to get shelved the moment someone gets their hands on Onslaught. I think it would be very sad for Dani to simply get replaced, and a proper tune up would prevent that

Not to mention that onslaught is a top tier defender aswell, while dani is purely an attacker

Usagicassidy

It really is a shame because Dani is such a great character (and the game team did a great job with her design and her animations) and the first Mutant we got in like 18 months to have her entirely swept under the rug by Onslaught.

I know people are stoked for Onslaught but I would really have personally loved to spend more of my time and resources on Dani but I'll be bummed if she's really not worth it. Still hoping we get a little bit more with the buff.

IvarTheBoneless

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.

Even with the buff and increased duration of her sp1 slow, it still falls off in the sp2 animation if you go sp1 sp2. At least that needs even more increase or some sort of pause during specials in my opinion.

Vegeta9001

I love my Dani moonstar she and sunspot being my r3s but she is not a heavy hitters, she doesn't have insane utility, she is just "good" or, maybe "decent" I like her Marked passive but once others start getting that she'll be back to Dani midstar

SecondSkriller

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.

Neuroshock.

Usagicassidy

More is always better, but I've never thought she needed much change. I do like the activation of the neuroshocks change.

Also, I don't see how Onslaught has anything to do with her kit.
Even with the buff and increased duration of her sp1 slow, it still falls off in the sp2 animation if you go sp1 sp2. At least that needs even more increase or some sort of pause during specials in my opinion.

They really said "here you go, two more seconds, fixed!" and called it a day.

SirGamesBond

Dani midstar,
decent damage.
Okay utility.
Not the best.
Not the worse.

= Mid

Looks and animation are pretty cool.
Much Smooth to play.
But 7* unduped/low sig. Way midder than other counter parts.

NONYABIZZ

Her damage has always been insane AND I HATE HOW EVERYONE IGNORES THAT.
SHE IS NOT Hard to play I don't know where any of you got that narrative from. Very easy to access what is 10 hits in a combo that y'all are not able to do.
She does need more crit rate and a way to refresh her energy vulnerability and slow, her heavy should be doing that honestly.
Also her marked should be the one stopping the Regen like it says on her abilities not any neuroshocks
Dani is a top 10 mutant DMG champion stop acting like she isn't.

MarvelNoob

Her damage has always been insane AND I HATE HOW EVERYONE IGNORES THAT.
SHE IS NOT Hard to play I don't know where any of you got that narrative from. Very easy to access what is 10 hits in a combo that y'all are not able to do.
She does need more crit rate and a way to refresh her energy vulnerability and slow, her heavy should be doing that honestly.
Also her marked should be the one stopping the Regen like it says on her abilities not any neuroshocks
Dani is a top 10 mutant DMG champion stop acting like she isn't.

I agree, my r2 can shred ROL ws in a single sp2. She's just so fun

EdisonLaw

Well, in the balance update for Photon and Vox, they did say that they plan to keep an eye on the buffs from now on and rebalance if needed

So they may take a look at this again and see if she needs further rebalancing

GalactikDonut

Well, in the balance update for Photon and Vox, they did say that they plan to keep an eye on the buffs from now on and rebalance if needed

So they may take a look at this again and see if she needs further rebalancing

i’m pretty sure this is referring to specifically older champs getting buffed like luke cage and red skull. they’ll treat the buffs like a new champ release and give them the same balancing window as a new champ