I believe the way this engine works, a character that can spam a large number of projectiles would be fun to fight against. Wizard's projectiles are more or less situational with the exception of orb, which is a great spam tool. They could be a unique keep away character without just hover camping a mile in the air. Here are some balance trait ideas:
---Negatives
- The bullet hell character should have next to none or no melee options allowing for an easy punish of moves in close proximity.
- --(1.) To avoid parry abuse, the bullet hell character should be unable to block, this would leave them vulnerable to possible counter-projectile pokes from Wizard and Cowboy and Ninja zoomies. All bullet hell projectiles on screen disappear as soon as the bullet hell character is hit.
- --(2.) In place of being unable to block, the character has an air dodge air option allowing them mobility and avoiding moves briefly.
- All projectiles cast from this character travel relatively slow to avoid just infinitely chipping your opponent to death and to be very reactable.
- Finally the character should have higher recovery on moves in proportion to the amount of projectiles a move creates.
---Positives
- To avoid camping out the bullet hell shooter and just parry farming them, many of their projectiles will be non-parryable and deal chip damage on block.
- For air movement, the character could activate a fly option that lets them quickly fly to a location within a radius while in mid-air, similar to hover, but faster and omnidirectional. This would consume an air option, trading an air dodge potentially. The hover ends when the destination is reached or the hover is cancelled. moves can be activated while hovering, similar to wizard.
- Moves that cast large amounts of projectiles will cause the caster to be static in the air while casting, giving them additional air time, while smaller options will act with normal movement.
- Chip damage can defeat opponents. Otherwise, no option this character can execute would be able to defeat your opponent, unless they just turn their brain off.
---Super Concepts
- Mirror | 1 bar - Creates a static straight line perpendicular from the caster that can be aimed in 4 directions (up, down, left, right). Reflects enemy projectiles that hit the shield back in the direction from where they came from hitting the caster of the projectile. This avoids getting bullied by things such as Cowboy's gun for a brief time. Touching the mirror itself deals no damage.
- Laser | 2 bars- Creates a sweeping laser that cuts across the stage creating firebars along the ground and walls as it hits. It OTG's because of course it does. Cannot be parried.
- Black Hole | 3 bars- The caster channels an attack for about 60 frames (pending), becomes static and immune to all attacks for the duration while casting a black hole on their own location. The black hole does no damage, but sucks in all previously cast projectiles towards its core, before spitting them out in the direction they were traveling at about double speed. Cannot be cancelled.
---Conclusion
The goal of this character concept is to create a character that requires opponents to have to weave between projectiles to approach, while still being reasonably punishable, not to create an unapproachable chip machine or "Wizard 2". Ideally, this character is all neutral and no combo. Eventually, I would like to take some time to learn to mod the game to toy with these ideas when the game finds a comfortable anchor point for the 3 main characters to balance against. Feel free to use these concepts for your own mods, if interested. The more the merrier. Spitballing is fun. Still deciding on an appropriate archetype. Summoner? Angel? A spaceship/UFO might be a neat change of pace. Trying to avoid robot themes to keep it distinct from possible upcoming characters. Feedback and ideas are welcomed.