Debating Terrafin

[Yaggleberry Finn]

I thought his Sandhog path was an absolute no-brainer, but I wanted to try his Brawler path so I would have damage values to include in my next blog post. Turns out I'm somewhat conflicted on which build is better!

Sandhog is helpful with the faster burrowing and the 15 damage per hit underground... and really that may be impossible to overcome with the other path.

However, Brawler makes his punches a lot stronger and creates auto-damage any time Terrafin is hurt. On the downside, his combos are much harder to execute than Voodood's.

If I could pick up a second Terrafin, I would really like to test them out side-by-side.

Either way, I also made a pretty helpful discovery: prior to upgrading with his soul gem, bounce pads will NOT pull you out of your burrowing. I know one of the annoying things in PvP is accidentally hitting a bounce pad and being immediately yanked out of the ground. If you play without powerups in PvP then there would absolutely zero reason to have this upgrade.

In fact, I find it to be a somewhat useless soul gem, since by the time you can afford it you no longer need money anyway. Picking up keys is somewhat helpful, but you probably don't need a lot of health playing as Terrafin. Even still it's easy enough to come above ground and pick things up.

[Tashiji]

Brawler isn't awful. Our second Terrafin is down that path, and if it weren't for the lack of a speed upgrade (Master Earth Swimmer) when burrowing, I might even use it full-time. Extra melee damage is nice, even if combo attacks are unwieldy for characters not named Voodood. For me, the major perk of Sandhog is just what it allows you to outrun and body slam; the extra 15 damage per underground hit is only icing on the cake.

Frenzy Shield is nice, but Homing Frenzy isn't so bad either. Although it's less lethal/accurate on the Wii, having to shake the Wiimote to dislodge sharks is a major pain in the butt; they're much easier to remove on PS360.

I would contend that Sandhog is still better, but not by nearly as far as Pook Blade Saint over Forest Ninja--the most glaring discrepancy between two builds in the game. If someone were to use Brawler, they'd still have quite a nice character on their hands, and perhaps it even is debatable to a certain degree. I've had better results with speed (in my opinion, speed is all-important in Skylanders), but your mileage may vary.

And I agree about the Soul Gem. If I could undo that one, it might be worth it, since that move has absolutely zero application in PVP; in fact, it may even detract, as you've said.

[thierrytng]

On the other hand, it might be more fun to pick Brawler because it's weaker than Sandhog. It will give your opponent a fighting chance, keeping things fun and preventing the 'banning' of figures from local PvP. Also, it'll make a nice challenge for you if you can still win with a non ultimate character, that isn't a one-trick pony but actually requires some smart combining of moves.

[Tashiji]

Fully agreed. Brawler Terrafin allows more competitive match-ups than cheapo Sandhog staying underground and attacking with homing sharks while cheapo Stealth Elf flips around the arena waiting for him to surface and regenerating health at 5 HP a tick, for hours if necessary. That's one of the game's "ultimate" fights, and it's so boring. Alternate builds allow characters who are too broken to be played, to be played.