I guess while were on the topic of supers, is there a reason why some characters get level 5s and others dont? Also, why are there no level 4's in this game lol? Like I don't think I've ever seen a character with an actual level 4 which is bizzare.
Historically, Skullgirls followed in the footsteps of the MvC series where there are Level 1, Level 3, and Level 5 supers. Even though the gameplay mostly resemble MvC2, the super pattern actually most closely follow MvC3 where everyone has 2 Level 1s and 1Level 3 by standard. Level 5 supers are very rare - Phoenix is the only character who has one.
In SG, all 8 of the launch characters had 2 Level 1s and 1 Level 3, with the exception of the "midboss" characters, Val and Double, also having 1 Level 5.
The first character in the game having a Level 2 super is Painwheel. It's because her Level 3 at the time, Hatred Install, was so bad as a Level 3, it was decided that for balance, it should have the bar requirement reduced by 1 while being slightly nerfed, so people are actually more likely to use it. Turned out to be a great decision since Hatred Install is now one of the best DHCs in the game (
not sure if one can say the same for the rest of PW's balance). In the same patch, Pinion Dash was removed for point character, so the animation was reused to give her a new Level 3, Buer Overdrive. That's why she has 4 supers including a Level 2.
So yeah, Painwheel getting a Level 2 super kinda opened the possibility for other characters to get Level 2 as well, but it's still a "non-standard" super so it's rare. I'm pretty sure the only reason Annie got one is because she has so many supers (due to her being originally made for SGM), that they thought it would be boring/harder to balance to make them all Level 1 and 3s. Same-level supers naturally compete against each other for utility so making it a Level 2 gives it a different set of utility that stands on its own.
Level 5s also remain rare for the most part, and they are either Level 5s for a good reason (like Val, Double, Big Band and Robo), so there is no justification to balance them by reducing them down to a Level 4, or they are joke moves that weren't intended to be balanced in the first place anyway (like Squigly and Fukua). Balancing a Level 5 by making them a Level 4 wouldn't make much sense anyway. A Level 2 is so good because it reduces the bar requirement on DHC by 50%. A Level 4 would only reduce it by 25% which is nowhere near as exciting.
Val and Double got Level 5s because they are midboss characters, as mentioned earlier. Pretty sure the reason Band got one was because he was a "dev character", and Mike wanted the Level 5 to showcase his trumpet playing mechanic, which is admittedly very cool. Robo has a "chargable" super so naturally it goes up to using all 5 bars. Squigly's is a hidden joke super. Fukua's I think is also a joke super because they wanted the "grappler" character to have a 360 super and it didn't fit anywhere else in her kit.
I think the only character that should have got a Level 5 but didn't is Eliza, since she is supposed to be a midboss character as well.
