The Problem with Legendaries in Brawl Stars

The legendaries in Brawl Stars are just like the legendaries in other Supercell games, such as Clash Royale. The similarities include none other than the difficulty of getting them and the bragging rights they give. However, while Clash Royale’s first legendaries did not come out until well after the global launch, Brawl Stars’ came out before even an Android soft-launch. There is no doubt that having such a rarity in a still developing game will cause some unbalanced issues. In most cases, the unbalancedness is resulted from overpowered, hard to get “assets”, but that is not the situation Brawl Stars’ legendaries are in. In fact, it is just the opposite: they are underpowered.

To fully explain how the legendaries are underpowered, we have to go into the details of each legendary. We will look at their special abilities, advantages, and how they can be improved. We will also go through whether the Brawl Stars team should add more legendaries into the game sooner or later.

Crow

Let’s start off with Crow, the bird-like Brawler. This legendary has the very unique ability to apply DOT, or damage over time. The attack shoots out three knives that apply DOT when they connect with its target. These blades, however, do not do as much damage as needed. They are spread out, meaning at most 2/3 of the knives will hit a single target, which more likely than not will not kill them. The DOT is not as much as it could be either. Each tick does minimal damage, which totals up to a little more than 100 (non-upgraded). The attack simply does not do as much damage as needed to be lethal.

Crow’s Super

The next point will be his super. Crow’s super has the used-to-be unique power of being able to escape the combat area and do some damage doing so. Crow releases a ring of knives around him when he jumps and releases another ring when he lands a few seconds later. This super is mainly for escape, so adding the ring of blades wasn’t much of a nerf as just a way to make it seem more powerful than it really is.

Crow’s Advantages

Now we can look at some advantages of Crow. This legendary Brawler has the unique DOT ability, which although weak, has a key useful-fullness to it. The main part of this DOT is that it prevents healing. As the target takes this DOT, they will not regenerate health. This means that your teammates can get an advantage when trying to kill an opponent. This one key is what makes Crow agent a legendary ranking, but that does not mean he deserves it.

Spike

Next, we will be moving on the Spike, the other cactus-shooting legendary Brawler. This legendary Brawler attacks with a threatening, but not deadly, piece of exploding cactus. Upon impact or maximum range, the thrown cactus will explode and a disk of spikes come out. These spikes are weak individually, like Crow, and do not have a special ability. However, the part that makes Spike somewhat a legendary is his Super, which we will get into later. The cactus thrown has a center of impact, meaning all spikes originate from the core. This also means that at the core, every single spike will reach their destination, doing great damage. While the center of the blast does high damage though, the chances of that happening is very slim, which weakens the attack capability to maybe a hundred or two damage dealt.

Spike’s Super

We have now reached the part where we talk about Spike’s Super. Spike’s Super has a very unique ability, like Crow’s attack. The difference between the legendaries specialties is that Spike’s Super slows the opponent. With a decent radius of impact, a good aim can hit the opponent(s) near the center and cause them to slowly lose health as they struggle to escape the hit. This specialty makes Spike’s legendary status look deserving, but remember: only a good aim and a Super gives Spike and advantage.

Spike’s Advantages

We won’t talk too much about Spike’s advantages since we covered the main one in the last paragraph. We will, however, cover the small advantages that are non-unique to Spike. For starters, he has a steady reload speed, decent range, and a powerful Super. Spike does have the advantage of projecting over obstacles like Dynamike, which can be very useful. Spike also has the advantage of hitting multiple opponents in all directions, meaning the ring of thorns can hit all three opponents around surrounding you. With these advantages in mind though, you still can’t cope with the problem of low health and low damage, which makes Spike a debatable legendary.

Possible Improvements

Since we covered the in-depth descriptions of Crow and Spike, let’s finally consider what improvements can be made. To begin with, the legendaries must simply do more damage and have more health. An 5% or 10% boost in damage and/or health would greatly help with their power. What can also be added can be their range, which can slightly increase by a few percent. Adding more specialties won’t be likely since they will probably just be used on future legendary Brawlers. That being said, adding improvements to current abilities are the only possible solutions to the problem. For Crow’s super, the blades can be improved by being able to break through walls, and for Spike’s super, the time can last a bit longer. If these or similar changes are implemented into the game, perhaps the legendary cards will be able to live up to their names better.

Conclusion

To wrap it all up, let’s just say that the legendaries could be more powerful than they are right now. Obviously, with the right combination of Brawlers and skill, they can provide a lot of support to the team. Their usage rates are not that high, but that being said, they are still extremely rare and not many people have them. As the game improves, so will the balancing, and that will give some hope for the poor legendaries.