Fenix activates Wall of Text
Good assessment hug0 and Jonny. I think a lot of the ideas are very good but allow me to play devil’s advocate.
Burning Vigor 2hp buyback is a big buff. It doesn’t seem like it when you think of it as Jaina taking a smaller % of the damage she deals, but when you think of it as a life increase in every game it is more obviously huge especially since Jaina already does pretty alright in most mus and probably doesn’t lose harder than 4-6 even in her worst mus. Even at 3hp per buyback Jaina should be buying back pretty often, especially straights and Ks which is something the rest of the cast only wishes they could do. 2hp per buyback probably equates to like a 10-15 hp buff in most games. In particular, BBB gets demolished by 2hp buyback Jaina and chars with more hp are hurt proportionally more too (read: grapplers). My prediction is that 2hp buyback Jaina would have to have 80hp and K reduced to one pump (so games where she finds 3+ Ks aren’t too dumb) to be in a good place.
If Smoldering Embers stays on 10 and is changed to return to hand from discard when the opponent dodges (which is a change I like), you should definitely not be able to powerup with it. If that were the case, once Jaina has 3+ Embers you’re basically saying “Jaina deals 6-8 dmg and gets 2-3 Aces whenever the opponent dodges”. Games where Jaina draws multiple embers would be very dumb. There’s more interesting strategies for dumping 10s when Jaina can’t powerup with them. For example, pumping them away to Q or Knee Bash.
Fast J is…abysmally bad as a combat-reveal. You don’t even consider it if you have K. If you don’t have a K and want to attack, why didn’t you play a normal attack so you can dig deeper into your deck (hopefully finding a K) and/or start a combo? If Fast J lands you get 6 dmg and wish you’d played a normal, if it’s blocked you still wish you’d played a normal. At 2.4 speed, even in the best mus for it (probably Grave/Geiger/Arg due to recurring/having lots of 2.4 speed attacks), I still think it’s so low EV that you shouldn’t play it even when lacking K. 2.2 is the speed at which Fast J becomes viable as a reveal imo. It helps vs. Mene/Grave/Geiger/Arg which is good, but it’s also strong vs. grappler Js which is unfortunate. Ultimately, I don’t think a Fast J buff is the way to go for Jaina.
I agree with cpat that Unstable Power is possibly the least interesting ability in the game and should be changed or tossed, though the concept does suit her flavor.
I gather that there are three main struggles for Jaina: lackluster dodge followups, too few blocks/throws, and vulnerability to 0.0 attacks in her endgame.
Slow J buff is a great solution to the dodge followup problem! I think 5.0 speed 10(9) dmg + KD would work wonders for her. It trades fine with Crash Bomb and now Rook/Troq can undercut it with 4-attack. If it turns out to be a bit dumb in grappler mus then we could make it 3cp starter instead of 2cp.
To address her scarcity of blocks/throws, making 10* return to hand from discard when it’s triggered and buffing Knee Bash to 3cp Starter (wowza current Knee Bash is so bad lol) is probably the best we can do. As long as she still can’t power up with 10s (which she shouldn’t be able to imo), I think of this as more of a quality-of-life change than a buff.
For addressing her weakness to 0.0 attacks, I think that just giving her a 0.0 is lazy. One idea I have is to connect Jaina’s 0.0 answer to Burning Desperation while also changing Unstable Power like so:
-Unstable Power is moved to 2* and is a During Combat ability that reads: “While Burning Desperation is active, you may take 7 damage to rotate this 180 degrees.”
This gives Jaina a potent but costly answer to 0.0 attacks during Desperation, which I think is thematically appropriate. The opponent has to blodge or play Rook/Troq K to come out ahead. If Jaina lands a KD, she has a mixup between 2* which beats everything but even block (and Rook/Troq K) and odd normal. Obviously strong, but I think it’s balanced by the fact that she has to be under 35 life to do it and it costs 7 life to rotate.
If Unstable Power as an ability is bad, it’s even worse when she can buy it back for 3 HP if it doesn’t work and this new version lets you play aces too. Being put on “blodge to avoid 2 into huge damage/duff throws to avoid huge damage” forever in the lategame is part of the reason Zane is such a problem for everyone.