Suggestions

Right now, one of the things making spawn pace OP, is the way hitstun is handled. A lot of the time, your inputs like "parry" or "ground", will just get eaten and not happen if your structure is in hitstun. To me, this feels very janky. I think hitstun as a feature is cool, but making it so stuff like parry is buffered and happens after the hitstun is over would help balance everything and make the game feel better.

In the game's current state, Vigor is perhaps the least used shiftstone, often getting discarded for adamant and stubborn for damage negation effects. Besides just making it heal more or requiring less damage (I'm gonna out some thoughts to these at the bottom, but they're not the main focus of this post), I think a good change would be to allow the healing to go over 20 HP. A problem that all defensive stones share is that they don't really do anything until you get hit. Stubborn, Adamant and Guard however at least interact with that first hit and reduce the damage. Vigor already has the downside of having a limited amount of healing to give each match (6 if the opponent isn't playing damage negation), so in some scenarios getting a 5 damage burst while staying at full HP - something that should feel great - can feel like you just lost 2 HP you could have healed to gain even greater HP advantage. On Changing the Numbers: I feel like a 3hp heal would be justifiable for how hard it is to proc, 4 would maybe even be too much. I'm against lowering the activation number, since that would completely change its current playstyle of going for two hits and follow ups to fishing for singular, strong hits with Walls and Grounded Cubes.

This post is part of a set of 6 posts where I talk about the current meta: ===================================================== #1: The second jump/airdash: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/1-the-second-jump-airdash-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta #2: Knockback: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/2-knockback-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta #3: Volatile stone: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/3-volatile-stone-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta #4: Stubborn stone: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/4-stubborn-stone-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta #5: Guard Stone: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/5-guard-stone-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta #6: Client/host balancing: https://rumble.canny.io/suggestions/p/6-client-host-balancing-on-the-current-state-of-the-rumble-meta ===================================================== 5 Guard Stone Guard stone is a really cool idea and I would like to see it being competitively viable. Before this can be the case however, I think some changes will really be necessary I think shiftstones adding an entire new pose can be slightly confusing and creates bigger asymmetries in playstyles that players have access to. In a discussion with Nat we found a nice solution to this: I think a standard "Brace" pose (same pose as guard) should be added to the base kit that makes you take 1 less damage (again, since this is a very intentional pose, its balanced in the sense that you will always have to choose between this defensive option OR playing proactively). ) Then the guard shiftstone can "enhance" this move by adding an overshield with additional effects: instead of letting you take 1 damage less, having guard block all damage but the shield has its own health pool if not giving the shield its own health pool: adding some timing mechanic that blocks more damage when timing the entering or leaving the pose with the structure hitting it. I think this would be way more interesting (there could also be more mechanical interactions like the size depending on its hp, with the hp regenerating over time as long as it never reaches 0) This would especially also encourage more high paced usage of guard and transitioning between it and playing offensively rather than just having it up for a longer time.

before the update after using iron boots you would get your speed doubled, now it is set to 0. this removes tech without adding anything, also makes you MORE vulnerable after iron boots. also also it doesn't allow you to iron boots several structures

Currently, as far as I'm aware, new players have access to all shift stones from 0 BP, including many which they cannot utilize due to lacking access to the moves required to utilize them at pebble rank. I think it would make sense to only have unlocked as a pebble the shift stones that don't require a certain move to utilize them and to allow the shift stones that require certain moves to be unlocked only once the required moves/BP has been acquired. Since there is a shift stone tab in the gear market, perhaps they could be acquired from there once the player has those moves and/or the required BP? Rank (BP) requirement for each stone with this change: Pebble (0 BP) - Surge, Adamant, Vigor, Guard Tor (30 BP) - Flow, Stubborn [this rank grants Dash, which completes the set of two moves referenced on both of these stones] Monolith (96 BP) - Charge Mountain (156 BP) - Volatile Thank you for your consideration. ^_^

The idea is making a good defensive tool, as it should be. So my suggestion is making the simple way to balance and make it good: negate 2 dmg instead of 1. Why? Because it is a pose. Stubborn negates 1 damage by dashing (something that you already do normally) and adamant negates 1 dmg when you hit your structure on your opponent or you (again, you will attack anyways, so it doesnt charge your playstyle). But guard, you need to do an action, so you are not attack, either dashing, you are guarding. Ex: your opponent with stubborn will do dash + attack = defend and you will do dash + guard = defend. Seems quite unfair, since guard is a shield to actually protect you. Why negating 2 dmg will be balanced and good for other shiftstones? You can run other shiftstones for synergize, since its a good stone for it without locking you hard: Charge/Vol/Flow + Guard: meta stones + a good defense against tip damage Adamant/Stubborn + Guard: you will do 2 actions (Attack + Guard or Dashing + Guard) to prevent a cube, one of the strongest structure to pace Vigor + Guard: vigor will be rlly strong, since you will heal 2 dmg and maintain with guard, making you hard to die

After sifting through all of the "Guard Stone Rework" posts I think I have a rework for the guard stone in mind that doesnt remove any current tech but still allows for guard stone to have more uses. Here is my proposed changes: Make it so any structure you guard is knocked back based on your speed going into it. For example if you disc jumped into a structure and guarded it it would get sent flying but if you just stood still and guarded it it would barely be knocked back. This effect wouldnt happen with the stubborn effect on to protect phasing and it also kinda makes sense since you dont get knockback so neither would the structure. Make guard not put you in a knocked back state. It should still give knockback but it shouldn't remove flow jump or stop you from doing moves. This would allow for guaRTS to actually be viable and to let guard be able to be used while flying. Since congealed boots is being removed anyway this wouldnt remove any tech but makes guard more viable in many scenarios. Make guard fade away if you hold it too long, similar to other fighting game blocks. This prevents the crutch of new players holding guard for ages. The timer would have to be at least a second or two for guard to still feel different to parry.

Guys, i have a idea to a shiftstone: chrono stone What does it do? Your next modifier (kick, uppercut, straight) will be delayed, then it will be released in the normal momentum. This has a cooldown of X seconds. Example: you kick a cube, for a short time it will be slow the momentum but it will be back normally. This can be good for stasis players, that can flick a chronoed cube, then when it releases you flail it. (Like a normal stasis lol but shiftstone) Sinergies: Flow: Delayed setups, like lucky dice with a delayed cube behind Charge: delayed chambering Volatile: long setups to get your enemy suprised Guard: a delayed hitstop, maybe Maybe you can stack modifiers in this time, idk, needs to see if its balanced. What do you guys think?

The shiftstones still have a gap of some playstyles being unfavored. Resulting in some people not being incentivized to learn them. One of them is sprint based playstyles. Why would you learn the hard to get used to sprint, if you have Flow and Stubborn for boosting the easy to learn dash? Most players completely skip sprint which is such a shame for the variety of playstyles... My suggestion: Swift Stone With the Swift Stone you get 2 small buffs on sprint: A way shorter buildup lag from starting spint. Keep your sprint while changing directions. While these buffs might sound extremely small compared to what Stubborn and Flow gives, but they have more advantages then you would think, making them good enough to be worth it in my opinion. The advantages: This makes sprint easier to learn. The way faster feedback from starting a sprint pose to getting the speed helps to realize if you did the right pose or not. It motivates the use of sprint, so more people will want to learn it. It's one of the rare Shift Stones that would be good for white belts, making early gameplay more interesting. It's easier to maintain your sprint through a corner, allowing to dodge attacks way easier. If you miss a sprint pose, it's easier to regain your sprint with the short buildup. Between 2 sprint poses it's already possible to do other moves while maintaining speed, but this timing is incredibly hard, while for dash this is incredibly easy already. With the shortening of the startup lag it's a bit easier for sprint as well. (Name suggested by Acorn.)

Make the bottom of the skirt semi-transparent when looking down to increase visibility during flight. Reason: certain mounts(ball) are completely invisible when flying on a skirt, making it much harder to fly. Potentially can be used on other cosmetics. dithering - CRWND