sisterbrawl-tournament-player

1. Evaluation of Combat Balance

Specials: Highly imbalanced and game-breaking. While some abilities offer fair utility (e.g., Frost’s ice wall), others break fundamental combat loops. Aqua can heal 15 HP every 1 second, out-sustaining almost all DPS. Shade has a global, auto-tracking assassination tool.
Character Base Stats: The design correctly employs asymmetrical stats (Terra is a slow 130 HP tank with 12 damage; Volt is a fast 80 HP glass cannon; Ember is the baseline). However, because hitstun lasts 20 ticks and fast characters like Volt have a 13-tick attack cooldown, fast characters can infinitely stunlock opponents against walls.
Bot AI: Primitive and non-competitive. Bots never use the Blocking state, never retreat, and only path straight toward the nearest player. Jump and special usage are triggered by pure RNG. They provide no meaningful practice for advanced mechanics.

2. Identification of Exploits & Mechanical Bugs

Asymmetrical Hit Detection (distance3D): The distance calculation treats the attacker (a) as a single point at their feet (a.y), but the target (b) as a full 1.6-unit cylinder. Because of this, distance3D(A, B) != distance3D(B, A). Attackers striking downward from above gain a massive 1.6-unit phantom reach advantage, creating an unfair “jump-attack” meta.
Shade’s Global Unblockable Crit: Shade’s teleport special has no max distance check (infinite range). When applying the 2x critical damage, it calls applyDamage() directly without checking target.state === EntityState.Blocking (unlike Terra, Volt, and normal attacks). It is an inescapable, unblockable nuke.
Aqua’s Immortal Heal: Aqua’s special heals 15 HP instantly with a specialCooldown of only 60 ticks (1 second). This gives her a completely disproportionate 15 HP/s regeneration rate, making her nearly immortal in neutral play.
Terra’s Airburst Nuke: Terra’s “Ground Pound” applies an instant 5-radius AoE spherical shockwave based purely on distance. It lacks a check to ensure Terra is on the ground (entity.y <= GROUND_Y), allowing it to be abused as a mid-air nuke.
Hitstun Cooldown Freeze: In processInput, attack and special cooldowns are not decremented if entity.hitstunTicks > 0. Taking damage permanently delays a player’s ability recovery, heavily rewarding the aggressor and making stunlocks even harder to escape.

3. Score for Competence/Agency

2/5 The foundational state machine (moving, jumping, attacking, combos) is intact, and character asymmetry shows strong design intent. However, severe mathematical errors in collision geometry and entirely unconstrained character specials obliterate competitive integrity and player agency.

4. Top 2 Specific Findings

Asymmetrical distance3D Hitboxes: Collision logic treats attackers as points at their feet and targets as vertical cylinders. This mathematical error makes combat asymmetrical, granting jumping attackers an unfair 1.6-unit vertical reach advantage.
Shade’s Unblockable, Global Teleport: Shade’s special lacks a range check and bypasses the EntityState.Blocking damage reduction entirely, turning it into a completely unavoidable, cross-map critical strike.