Newest top tier character?

[Yaggleberry Finn]

I don't know if your Double Trouble experience has been anything like mine, but I immediately jumped on board with his Conjuror path. The heat-seeking exploding doubles that swan dive into their opponents is both fun and powerful. Super charging them with the Eldritch Beam makes them even more devastating. But as much fun as they were, I really didn't think DT would be more than a mid-tier battler. Lots of fun, yes, but never enough to play with the heavy hitters.

And then, out of curiosity, I tried out his Channeler path. Oh. My. I won't come right out and say he's the most powerful PvP'er of the bunch, but he's in the running! When fully upgraded, he can drop 3 consecutive magic bombs in quick succession for 65 damage each. And that attack cannot be interrupted. Eldritch Beam is a lot better when it has increased range, and it's more powerful to boot.

Yes, he has limitations with a lack of speed and low hit points. The first is not as big of an issue due to his homing minions. The second is probably what keeps him from being overpowered.

At least those are my thoughts. Has anyone else given Channeler a try? What do you think?

[Radical Tropicon]

Wow, I really didn't expect DT to be so amazing, especially his Eldritch Beam! This is rather awesome to know, but I cannot resist the fun of having clones runamuck in the game

[Yaggleberry Finn]

That's the best reason to just get two! And really, if you're going to have doubles of any character, doesn't this one make the most sense?

[Radical Tropicon]

Haha true enough! you can justify buying more of this guy, all you have to do is say that one is the original, and the rest are his clone army!

[tyris01]

On the PS3 version, the initial Magic Bomb--even on Channeler path--is, indeed, easily interruptible. The second and third ones, not so much. Usually since the enemy just took knockback to the edge of the blast effect and will be taking the next hit on the chin. The range on his Beam makes it a fairly decent mid range attack where, once you lock on, you can circle strafe your foe or run if he's chasing you (ie: is melee). And the clones, while not super-swan-diving or powered up, are great to cast when you're not in range of the other two attacks, as they will both pester the enemy and pull fire from guided attacks.

Channeler's easily my favorite.

I like TikiTreeBeast's ideas of multiples. Perhaps get some modeling paint and give the other a darker colored mask?

[Yaggleberry Finn]

I know that Tashiji and Tyris have been debating player vs player issues elsewhere, but I'm going to post here since it pertains to Double Trouble. I'm telling you all, on the Wii Double Trouble is absolutely ridiculously overpowered and broken. No one so far even comes close to being as good as him. Forget doubles, forget magic bombs... it's all about the Eldritch Beam. It locks on from a safe distance and then DT is free to change elevations or run away and just annihilate his opponents.

His biggest counter is Drobot, but Drobot suffers against him because DT can change elevations without any penalty to his damage output. Drobot's most effective weapon is his afterburner, but that basically will only hit DT once before Drobot has to try and turn around to do it again. In the meantime Double Trouble can lock back on and do his thing.

I successfully hammered every single character with DT before switching with my friend and trying to beat DT instead. Both times I used Drobot - the first I won by 50 health, the second I lost by 200 health. I think in the first game he was just getting the hang of the Eldritch Beam. It requires perfect execution by the Drobot player and there's still a sizable chance that DT wins anyway. No other character can handle their silver bullet like DT on the Wii. As for Cynder and Stealth Elf, they simply have no chance against him. Cynder suffers from the type disadvantage and doesn't do enough damage anyway. Stealth Elf has to come close to hit at all, which just leads to her death.

It might be different on other consoles, but on the Wii I think Double Trouble is head and shoulders above everyone else.

[tyris01]

Haven't tried him against the Broken Three on the Wii yet.

As for PS3, it goes down a bit like this:

His lockon beam is interrupted whenever he takes damage. So long as he's not taking damage, he can keep it going.

Drobot will, of course, splatter him with heaps and heaps of damage coming in tiny bursts about 4 times per second. The DT player will be doing about 20 damage every second. Drobot will be doing well over 36, not including any bonus damage. DT can try to lock on and get away, but it requires the Drobot player to be asleep as his Afterburners are NOT interrupted and he can just zoom after DT, get up close, and keep shooting. Should DT attempt Magic Bomb, he'll get interrupted again. Should he waste time with doubles, Drobot will outdamage him even faster. Bout all he can do is attempt some bounce pad cheese, which on some maps (I'm thinking Mushroom Grove) might actually be a viable way of doing it.

Cynder will take some early damage fairly quickly, but she, too, can apply interrupts. On the Wii version I'd imagine she'd do better where her Ghost power slows. As he has a type advantage on her, he's probably going to win in most instances, especially if he's not interrupted. On the PS3 though, it's a much closer fight, and does come down to individual skill (he has a good advantage, but given an average player and a good one, the good one will win). However, proper use of Magic Bomb on her in a cramped space where she can't escape with Dashes will usually result in her death if the DT player can lure her in and start it before her chip damage gets set up.

Stealth Elf, at least on PS3, just tears him apart. It comes down to the interruptible powers again, and she gets off attacks as fast as Drobot (since her Cloud of Knives functions as a seperate attack source) that interrupt him. He can try to keep hitting the basic attack, but he's just pulsing it and she's laying into him. He has no speed to get away, and his Magic Bomb--while providing knockback--will get interrupted first. The usualy first fight involves her flipping in and just mauling him. Then the DT player realizes he has to time the bomb. He might catch Stealth Elf by surprise the next time, at which point she will flip away to find a teleporter, recover health, and use her Stealth ability to make him fire the bombs early, then rush in and maul him. Ninja Flip FTW... and on the PS3, it has quite a good bit of range that I think it lacks on the Wii version.

On the Wii he might just deal too much basic damage. On the PS3 it ticks for 20 or so each time. What does it do on that version?

[tyris01]

I finally got a friend with good skill to test this guy with. So, here's some lessons learned.

Additional information for D.T. on PS3:

His channel beam seems to require a certain amount of damage to be dealt to him before it is turned off. Near as I can tell, it's around 21-25 damage either per blast or per second (some smaller, rapid-fire hits stack up to break it, while some bigger hits do it in one go). Ranged spec Spyro can't seem to do enough, but beam-specced Prism Break interrupts him immediately. Pretty much any dedicated melee guy will interrupt with each basic punch/stab. Thus it has a 'keep away' nature to its gameplay when fighting such foes.
It's ability to go through terrain once a lockon is achieved is really cheap. Usually when getting drilled by ranged guys you can duck around a block, corner, whatever, but once the channel beam is on you, it's staying on until you get out of range or deal sufficient damage.

Tests VS various Skylanders:
Bash, Rollout spec: Rollout Bash can tear him up pretty easily. The roll attack itself interrupts the beam. If you time the attack to tail swing immediately upon hitting D.T., you will inflict a very large amount of damage--and push him back. This is important since the standard tactic of a D.T. will be do chain up the three-shot Magic Bomb. Note you can roll THROUGH the Bomb, so the combo hit above is necessary in order to interrupt D.T. and inflict sufficient damage. D.T. needs to use the terrain to his advantage and hug the jump pads/teleporters. In a direct fight, once Bash gets close (and if he can stay close), D.T. will pop in seeconds.
Drill Sgt, Dozer spec: Drill has a type advantage and a really fast fire rate on that blaster. Basically involves getting close and 'jousting'... with arms like lances and an uzi. Tends to work pretty well, and the pushback can interrupt the beams. So does a second or so of autoblaster, though. Sometimes he can interrupt Bomb, sometimes not, usually you just have to Charge out of range, turn back to fire your arm missles, and Charge back in. If he starts up the bomb, turn away, launch arm missles again. If he does the beam, run him over. D.T. can potentially do more damage over time if he has good timing, but it's only a short period and he has no way of getting out. Best option is to use a terrain-heavy map to get a lock on and try to dodge Drill, then make him run by firing off a single bomb then moving. Won't be an easy fight.
Eruptor, Volcano spec: Eruptor dies horribly. D.T. simply puts lockon beam and runs away. On the PS3 the lava doesn't inflict nearly as much damage as on the Wii, so the lava itself won't interrupt (but if he's near one of the 3 little volcanoes, the stacked damage will). Eruptor waddles too slowly to dodge Bomb Doubles, and his ranged attacks are all sub par. Even if he gets close, Magic Bomb will outdamage his Volcano with ease. Eruptor just... dies.
Spyro, either spec: This entirely depends on the map. On a sufficiently small map, which is basically Cyclops Square or down, D.T. can just deal too much continuous damage and burns Spyro down. Even the melee one can't do much using stuns as the 'stun resistance' after it is more than enough for D.T. to make up the damage difference. On a larger map like Nekropolis, Pirate Grotto, or the ice one (name eludes me), ranged and melee Spyro can fire shots to keep range and fly away to avoid hits or grab items. Melee types can deal the damage but let the D.T. close in. The range of Magic Bomb's PBAoE is about the same distance it takes a charging Spyro to get into Ibex mode. The Stun will, obviously, interrupt, but more importantly, it locks them into their attack. So, if D.T. is starting a Bomb, he will get frozen in mid animation, then when un-stunned he will finish the attack. Let's the Spyro player 'joust' for damage then plink at range. In this case, it comes down more to the skill of the player than the relative strength of his Skylander, as they are about even on these maps. For Sheep Burners, the Daybring Flame will cut through bomb minions like Death's own scythe and then explode on (or near) D.T. himself for the 30 damage. I suppose the opposite of the 'jousting' melee version would be a 'sniping' ranged one.

[tyris01]

Chop-Chop, any path: A handy win for D.T. He has the type advantage, a greater damage output, and a more useful variety of moves. If you're shield spec, there appears to be an odd bug where the first 'tick' of a locked-on Eldritch beam will push you back and deal no damage, the second tick will deal no damage, and all following ticks will do damage, even with your shield up. You have to get close, and even with a Shield Stun, D.T. will soak up the puny damage then cut loose with Magic Bombs that can do near triple-digit damage per tick. Even with Chop's quite-good HP, there's just not much he can do. Sword Chop-Chop fares even worse. While he does have greater melee and that spinning-charge finisher, he simply doesn't inflict enough damage and D.T. will simply not care that he's close, using Bombs or Beams accordingly. Nice knowing you, Chop-Chop.

Dino-Rang, Rang spec: This one is unfortunately not so good for Dino. While he can get a couple of boomerangs off from a distance, and set up a stonefist trap, the biggest problem is that his Boomerang Shield doesn't have the range of the Eldritch Beam, and there's a 'dead zone' at a range where Dino simply can't do anything but chuck individual boomerangs while D.T. grinds him to death. Using bounce pads and terrain and whatnot only helps so much, and D.T. is either the same speed or barely faster on foot. Dino has great burst damage up close with shields and fists, but no way to keep D.T. there. Also, once the shield is fired, he cannot chuck his rangs, so D.T. can just lure him into firing, lock the beam on him, and play keepaway. Definitely give this one to D.T. in most cases.

Flameslinger, Pyro spec: Like Eruptor, this battle tends to be a bad one for the Fire Type. Non-spreadshot arrows don't help too much, and while the Supernova Flame Column annihilates melee dudes, it'll never get close enough to D.T., who's own Magic Bomb will go off beforehand, slam Flame, and knock him out of his 'path'. It's sort of an attack juggling game where the D.T. player wants his minions to chase Flame when his Fire Dash is on cooldown while he also gets close enough to lock on the beam. If D.T. gets caught in the middle of an Arrow Rain he can be interrupted, but if hit with just one he simply doesn't care. As such, Flameslinger will spend most of the time running for his life and trying to plink D.T., whereas D.T. will just have to get close enough to beam or bomb. More importantly, I his Arrows simply don't have enough damage to interrupt the Channeled beam. I must test whether or not Marksman-specced Flameslinger can do so with his upgraded basic shots.

Gill-Grunt, Water Weaver spec: This is an... unusual fight. I only had two chances to try it out, and both worked out well for Gill, but my friend got extremely irritated and wouldn't give it a few more tests. While I would like to say Gill is a clear winner, I'm just not certain on it. What happens is that the channel beam and the water hose seem to be able to interrupt each other. They also tick at different speeds. In our two tests, once I learned this, I led off with a harpoon attack followed by the hose. The harpoon interrupted the beam and I got lucky with the hose where it kept ticking at the right time immediately after his attacks, while also spamming starfish. This killed D.T. right fast, but it was more of a straight-up 'gunfight' where we didn't attempt any dodging or maneuvering. Would have continued doing such, but--as I said--my friend was quite grumpy and reluctant to continue. It may have something to do with the test, or it may have something to do with the fact that HIS D.T. is bomb specced (he was testing using mine, though) and around this time was about when he realized how utterly useless his Bomb Double spec was and how much he needed to reset his character. So... I'm not sure how to call this until and if we test it again. Short version is: If they stand there and just shoot at each other, Gill wins every time. The obvious solution is for the D.T. player to NOT sit still. I would have tested it playing as D.T. myself, but even if my friend wasn't upset, he doesn't know how to handle Gill well (spamming Starfish, using lateral dodges, etc).

Slam-Bam, melee path: As a brute-force melee guy, Slam tends to wreck D.T.'s face up close unless he gets pushed into a corner by repeated bombs. His best approach is to swing while outside of melee range and hit D.T. with the overhand-smash finisher which will interrupt any of his moves, then keep doing melee. His slide is beneficial in that D.T. can't get away faster, and being up close is bad news. In D.T.'s case, he has to play keep away with the beam and time his Magic Bombs just right, preferably by luring Slam into an area where the Bomb can push him into a corner and get off its three-round bursts. Really precise and careful Slam-Bammers can actually put his freeze attack to good use by getting outside the blast radius when the ability is cast and then sending the ice trail straight over to D.T. to freeze him in a block while he's casting or recovering from the Magic Bomb. I'd have to say this fight usually goes to Slam, all things being equal, and it's one of the very few instances where that ice power serves any use at all.

Stump Smash, melee path: No surprise that he, and most of the other pure-melee types, has the ability to interrupt D.T.'s beam with almost every attack. The one that doesn't are the acorns, and those are what determines who will win this. D.T. can engage at a medium range with his lockon beam and chew Stump to death, but Stump has a lot of hitpoints[/b] to use to close the difference, and the Stump Charge helps him do it. Smaller maps will usually go to Stump for these reasons (Cyclops and down), whereas the larger maps are usually more of a fair fight and tend to favor D.T. if his player is good at evasion. It only takes one mistake for the Stump to get into close range and utterly maul D.T.

[Yaggleberry Finn]

Tyris, any chance you have access to the Wii version of the game? I will hop on later this week and try to get some more specific test data for Double Trouble like what you have here. Even on the Wii I agree that there's an amount of damage that has to be dealt before the eldritch beam is broken. Not sure what that amount is at the moment.

From reading your posts here, sounds like DT just isn't as good on the PS3 as he is on the Wii.

[tyris01]

Sorry, no Wii access. Have one friend that has one, and got the game for his kid--along with all the figures--but they don't play it. In his kid's defense, the boy's not really old enough anyway as he's like 6. Maybe I can go play at that guy's house sometime, but chances are most fights will happen at mine.

---

Whirlwind, both paths: This is another fight that's slightly in D.T.'s favor (Ultimate Rainbower) or pretty much a guaranteed win (Tempest Dragon). In the case of Ultimate Rainbower, Whirlwind is at a disadvantage, but not a terribly great one. Basically, you have to play like a melee character and get in close. The double mortar will hit D.T. each time and even a single blast will usually interrupt his beam (but NOT his Bombs, watch out!). Basically it involves running up on him and then spamming mortars. If pushed back by the Magic Bomb, suck it up and just keep firing outside its range (the first hit will mess you up but if D.T. does the full burst your extra mortars will make up the difference). Under no circumstances allow D.T. to camp on jump pads, as that's about his only option for avoiding your damage. Either put a cloud on them and fly away at top speed or ignore him and go outside his beam range to force him to you. You have Flight, so you should be able to snatch up the items. In most cases though it comes down to D.T.'s vastly superior damage output at all ranges, whereas you have a limited space and have to play it skillfully. An average player on D.T. will break even with a good player on WW.
As for Tempest Drake, considered by some (not myself) to be the superior path, note that you are really in a bad spot. Your mortar does not outrange his Magic Bombs, you have no method of breaking his beamlock by damage, and unless he for some odd reason wants to stand still in the middle of your clouds (which he can just walk away from), he's going to outdamage you in a straight up fight. D.T. doesn't even really need anything other than the lockon beam, but if WW is stupid enough to charge into melee, let 'er rip, he can't hit you in it with those mortars unless he fires a cloud, then the mortar. Which lets you cancel out and move back while establishing beam lock.
In either case, D.T. is well advised to use Bounce Pad shenanigans. But that's part and parcel of his strategy anyway thanks to that lockon beam.

Ignitor, Flame Soul path: I don't know about the melee path since it's garbage for everything else. Depending on map, this will either be a rather easy fight for Ignitor or a close race. Larger maps favor the Fiery One, smaller favor D.T. It's all about running wild in fire mode and stripping off 1/4 or 1/3 of D.T.'s max health before he can get in engagement range. At that point it entirely depends on the skill of the Ignitor player, which is to say, how well he knows his engagement ranges.
The interesting thing about Ignitor and Double Trouble is that they are two sides of the same coin, two similar approaches to opposite combat methods. Ignitor being the melee variant and D.T. being the ranged version. Both have an extremely potent close range attack (the Bomb vs the basic Fire Sword, which interrupts D.T.'s moves just fine), a medium range attack (the Channel Beam VS the Oversword), and a long range attack (Tiki Bombs VS Flame Soul). The other difference is the power of their long and medium ranged attacks... Ignitor's Fire Soul does much more than his Oversword but is not worth the effort when they are in Oversword range, whereas D.T.'s doubles are useless at medium range, where the beam shines best.
For the DT player, you want to get at the mid range where you can still hit him with the edges of your bombs but be decently enough skilled to avoid his Oversword. The normal reaction is to stay at range and chip (where he can pile on fire damage) or get really really close and cut lose with big bombs. There's a medium-sized 'kill zone' where you can out-DPS him while insuring your bombs are not interrupted, and you have to learn to play it. The Ignitor player, obviously, has to keep D.T. out of this zone. It doesn't help that the Channel beam has a longer range than the Oversword, but it's nice that the Oversword can get a good chop in if D.T. tries to hog bounce bads (as it hits vertically) and then move out of range of the beam before running naked at his enemy and exploding.
Use of the sword-boosting path will just result in D.T. killing you at midrange with the channel beam and pushing you back with Magic Bombs.

Trigger Happy, Golden Gun version: A fairly hard counter to D.T., at least on the PS3, he has type advantage, sends enough shots downrange to deal a crapton of DPS without it, and they seem to stack the damage fast enough to keep interrupting D.T.'s beam. While D.T. could feasibly get in close for a Magic Bomb attack, each and every one of Trig's massive coins can trigger a pushback effect, which unfortunately keeps the Tiki dude far enough away. Trig players on medium or large maps should start off by powering up the Yamato Cannon. If D.T. doesn't get close, he's going to eat a faceful of golden death. If he does decide to charge, he's probably going to get nailed by an 80-point Dollar Coin. Obviously you don't charge up this attack while in D.T.'s beam range... at that point you shell him with coins. D.T. may try to hug the bounce pads, but that's when you get a clear distance away and keep firing. Alternatively, you can start charging up the Yamato Cannon, as it really doesn't care about the heigh of its target. This will get D.T. to come to you, or he'll easily take 200+ points of damage thanks to the type advantage.
Even the money path is useful here, as the oversized coin bombs hit a decent area and can knock D.T. away from his precious jump pads with the proper timing. You can still charge up a Dollar Coin, but you'll never have the Yamato blast. The main loss is the lack of bouncing coins, which is what helps you tag the little pest on the smaller maps.
While D.T. can sometimes win this engagement on the PS3, it's quite rare, and will be the result of the Trig player being lazy or vastly lower in skill than the D.T. player.

Prism Break, either path: Like his buddy Dino-Rang, poor Prism is at a severe disadvantage. It's mostly due to his attack 'dead zone'. While his beams will interrupt the channeled beam, the non-beam-specced version won't have the range, and the one that does still has elevation issues. Basically D.T. needs to get the higher ground, at which point Prism's accuracy is all gone, and chip away. His Magic Bomb deals far more damage than the crystal eruption, but the eruption is a bit faster and will 'push' D.T. away even if it doesn't interrupt him. His Tiki Bombs will almost always hit due to Prism's slow speed. Most fights will start out with D.T. spawning minions and making a beeline for Prism. The Cystalleers have a bit of an advantage with those triple-crystal formations, and that's really about the only chance most Prism players will have to eke out a victory. In most cases, this will go to D.T., pretty much 80% of the time with equally skilled players.

The Unholy Trinity: Both Drobot and Stealth Elf will tear D.T. a new one with very little effort on the PS3 version of the game. Both do great amounts of DPS that stack and easily interrupt most of D.T.'s abilities. Cynder is kind of an odd bird, especially since D.T. has type advantage and really doesn't care if she's Dash-happy. Well timed Magic Bombs will put an end to her dashing, and her lightning breath, while neat, puts her in channel beam range where D.T. has greater DPS. Perhaps on the Wii with the different damage values and working ghost slowdown this might be different, but in most cases, D.T. is rolling along quite nice in this matchup.