5.0 is not on the table any more, that was simply poorly thought through. It will be at least 7.0 speed in any event. The broader case of attacks that beat blokka will have to wait until I’m no konger on phone.
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Val’s K is a one frame link and takes incredible skill to play correctly.
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Yeah I could see that being problem. I guess there are a few abilties (Patriot Mirror, slow effects) that affect the next turn and don’t have an immediate obvious way to indicate them in the tabletop game. I like the idea of having to reveal an attack card to the opponent. Of course you could just reveal one you’re about to spend to give them no info. Alternatively if Flame arrow becomes a linker as per Fenix’s suggestion, maybe that would be enough. I really like that specific idea for her.
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I absolutely love this and felt compelled to draft a full design based on it. I had to fiddle quite a bit, but I think the design is super interesting.
85 life
x.4 normal attacks
Burning Vigor:
When you win combat with an attack or Knee Bash, draw a card and your Flame Arrows are 0 combo point Linkers this combat. If you attack next turn but don’t win combat, take 5 damage. If you attack and do win combat, search your deck or discard pile for a Jack.
Burning Desperation:
If you have 35 life or less, your Queen and Ace attacks are 0.2 speed faster and your red face cards deal +2 damage.
2: A/D
3: A/D
4: A/D
5: A/B
6: A/T
Knee Bash, 6-throw, 8.6 speed, 8 damage, 3CP Starter
7*: B/T
Unstable Power [Draw Phase]: This turn, if the opponent isn’t knocked down, you can rotate your combat-revealed attack 180 degrees. If you win combat, search your deck or discard pile for one Queen or Ace. Otherwise, take 5 damage. If you have 35 life or less, search for two Queens or Aces instead.
8: B/T
9: B/T
10: B/T
Jack*:
Flame Arrow, Attack, 2.4 speed, 5(4) damage, 1CP Ender
Charged Shot, Attack, 5.0 speed, 8(7) damage, 3CP Starter, KD
Smoldering Embers [Combat Reveal]: When the opponent dodges while this card is in your discard pile, they take 2 damage and you return this card to your hand. This ability can only activate once per turn.
King:
Crossfire Kick, Attack, 2.2 speed, 6+7+7(3) damage, +K+K, 2CP Starter
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That version of Jaina is better than Zane and Troq put together, probably.
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Any response to the “this gives her double normal draw” issue raised earlier? Also, incorporating mysticjuicer’s alternative of mirroring Grave’s innate makes the wording much less ambiguous:
Burning Vigor
When you win combat with an attack or Knee Bash, your Flame Arrows are 0 combo point Linkers this combat and you may reveal an attack card from your hand. If you combat-reveal that card next turn but don’t win combat with it, take 5 damage. If you do win combat with it, search your deck or discard pile for a Jack. (Shuffle your deck if you searched it.)
…But writing this out, I feel like this has a weaker incentive to play honest than Grave’s innate does. Sure, it’s nice flavor that she takes damage if she guesses wrong, but Grave gets at least some reward for playing honest regardless of whether he wins combat and Grave players still play dishonest quite often. New Jaina, on the other hand, seems unlikely to want to take a chance to get back a Jack when (1) the Jacks already have another way of coming back through Smoldering Embers, and (2) the consequence for playing honest and not winning combat (which is not the same as losing combat) is to take 5 damage and get nothing. If I were playing this version of Jaina, I’d probably only play honest when I had a hard read that they’d punish a dishonest play… And even if I wanted the combat options on the card I revealed, I may play a different card with the same options so I don’t have to take the penalty and can still get the reward of 0 cp Linkers, assuming I have some Jacks in hand.
None of that is getting into the rest of the character, which has problems of its own. I’m inclined to agree that she’s too strong this way, which is ironic considering that wall of text I just wrote… Though I would be curious to hear some of why you said that, @mysticjuicer.
Can spin any card on unstable power turn. No restrictions on aces not being allowed that turn. Use UP on a turn when your innate is active. 10s return to hand and can be powered up. Innate giving you Js and turning them into 0 CP linkers.
Agreed with all of that except… 10s don’t return to hand? Smoldering Embers got moved to Jack in this hypothetical build (which I don’t particularly like, since the “return to hand on trigger” version of smoldering embers is redundant with the innate returning Jacks to hand and gives less incentive to use the KtO part of the innate, not to mention that they removed the “can’t power up with these” clause). But yes, until I saw your comment I’d intended to go on to “is it really a good idea to remove the restrictions on Unstable Power?” And like I said above, as this is written I’d only use her innate to turn the Js into linkers instead of trying to return them to hand unless I was desperate for an additional 5 damage for some reason…
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Ah, missed the ability switch to J.
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This topic now for fan characters? Because I’ve got one for Arakune from BlazBlue.
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I mean, this is at least a redesign of an existing character…? People have made new topics for fan characters before, so that would probably be better for a character that doesn’t exist in Yomi already. I am interested in seeing your idea, though!
I suspect you missed a healthy dose of sarcasm intended with @niijima-san’s comment 
I’m with @mysticjuicer that Fenix’s suggested build is way powerful, but the idea of making J central to Jaina’s game plan still seems like a good one to me. @hobusu also raises a valid point that the payoff seems a bit skewed away from being honest.
What if “aggro-ing the opponent” had a free J as the compensation for being “honest”. Something like:
Aggro-ing the Opponent
At the end of combat, if you dealt damage or block damage with an attack this turn, search your discard pile or deck for a Jack and attach it to your character card. If you combat-reveal an attack, detatch a Jack and add it to your hand. If you lose combat and detatch a Jack, take 5 damage. If you win combat and detatch a Jack, you may search your discard pile or deck for a face card and add it to your hand. (Shuffle your deck if you searched it.)
I’m not dead set on the attachment wording, but something like this would give her recurring Jacks even on a loss and a clear indicator of when she’ll either take damage or gain a benefit. Thoughts?
3 Likes
Ah, that seems so obvious in hindsight… This is exactly why I either strikeout or put a wink at the end whenever I do something like that, just to make sure there’s no confusion about whether I’m serious.
i still want to see that character idea tho
I like the basic idea, though I think the wording could definitely be improved. Also the name; I assume that’s just placeholder to separate it from other ability ideas, right?
I think one thing we need to establish is “what should Jaina’s main gameplan be?” I stand by wanting to make combat-revealing Flame Arrow at least as good of an option as it is for Grave and/or Geiger to combat-reveal their own Jacks, which means that while all this talk of making Jaina’s Jacks return to hand and be more useful in combos is interesting, it doesn’t address the issue I feel most strongly about. Maybe that’s not as important to other people, and that’s fine! But we need to have some idea of where this should go before trying to get it there.
By the way, I just found out that my proposal for how to make Flame Arrow better as a combat-reveal (which seems like it would work well with an innate that returns Jacks to hand but doesn’t make them better in combos) was 20 days and 602 posts ago! This topic has gotten way more attention in the last month than the entire rest of the time it’s existed on this forum…
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Oops! Was shooting for around Geiger power level but yeah I clearly overshot lol. Was thinking about ways to balance but it would need a pretty thorough overhaul rather than just damage/speed nerfs I think.
In particular, I’m thinking that offloading the 0 CP Linker Flame Arrow ability to an Ongoing ability (and removing Unstable Power altogether) would be healthier. Something like this maybe, with the obvious nod to FSFG and Jaina’s destiny card:
Rain of Fire [Draw Phase]: Ongoing. Your Flame Arrows are 0 combo point Linkers. Red Flame Arrows beat even numbered dodges, black Flame Arrows beat odd-numbered and non-numbered dodges. Discard this if you get hit.
2 Likes
Interesting ability! Which rank of cards would this be on?
I was thinking 8. Not as crucial a combat card as 7 but not useless as a combat card either. Plus it’s kinda made up for by Knee Bash being 8.6 speed, assuming Knee Bash is buffed somehow.
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Lol yes, as much as I love memery such as “Final Authrowity” I wouldn’t actually want those names making it onto cards 
OoOoOoOoOoOoOoOoOo I like it! Certainly captures some of the feel of Codex / FSFG Jaina
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Here’s a Rain of Fire Jaina build. The innate was actually the last part I added, quite ironic after I said earlier that settling on an innate should be the first step :^). There are probably a lot of possible innates that could work as long as they let her search for Jacks. This one is intended to make Jaina’s high block damage values from red normals / Flame Arrow / Charged Shot more significant to her gameplay. Jaina’s lategame damage potential with Rain of Fire up is pretty bonkers and might need to be nerfed, but at least it’s not immune to Jokers. 
Tried to rein this in a bit by making her throws 3CP (except Knee Bash which is now 2CP) and removing 2 pumps from King and Red Dragon.
85 life
x.4 normal attacks
3CP normal throws
Burning Vigor:
When you deal block damage, you may take X damage to search your deck or discard pile for a Jack. X is 7 minus the block damage you dealt.
Burning Desperation:
If you have 35 life or less, your Queen and Ace attacks are 0.2 speed faster and your red face cards deal +2 damage.
2: A/D
3: A/D
4: A/D
5: A/B
6: A/T
Knee Bash, 6-throw, 8.6 speed, 8 damage, 2CP Starter, KD
7: B/T
8*: B/T
Rain of Fire [Draw Phase]: Ongoing. Your Flame Arrows are 0 combo point Linkers. Your red Flame Arrows beat even normal dodges and your black Flame Arrows beat odd normal dodges. Discard this if you get hit.
9: B/T
10: B/T
Jack*:
Flame Arrow, Attack, 2.4 speed, 6(3) damage, 1CP Ender
Charged Shot, Attack, 5.0 speed, 8(7) damage, 2CP Starter, KD
Smoldering Embers [Combat Reveal]: When the opponent dodges while this card is in your discard pile, they take 2 damage and you return this card to your hand. This ability can only activate once per turn.
King:
Crossfire Kick, Attack, 2.2 speed, 6+7(3) damage, +K, 2CP Linker
Ace:
Red Dragon, Attack, 0.8 speed, 10+10(2) damage, +A, Can’t Combo
I still don’t like Smoldering Embers being on Jack, nor do I like it being changed to return the card it’s on to hand, and I definitely don’t like it being possible to power up with them alongside all that. Can you tell me why you have it like that when you already have an innate that returns Jacks to hand? Is there a compelling reason to be able to power up with cards that can be returned to hand in two different ways? For that matter, is there a compelling reason to change it from the 2nd edition version of the ability at all?