Meta Shift: Bardock

Bardock is probably one of the most anticipated LFs that have been released by Dragon Ball Legends. The main reason is that he's such a beloved character by the fandom, but secondarily he also didn't get any love from the developers for a while in terms of new releases, excluding the Zenkai awakening of his everlasting SP Super Saiyan Bardock BLU relevant. However, Zenkais aren't really as exciting as new Fighters, so most Bardock fans have been left to dry for the past 1-2 years. 

Because of this, when LF Bardock got announced the collective hope was that he would at least be very competitive in the current meta, an expectation that didn't seem unreasonable considering how much better the past few LF releases have been compared to most of the ones released during the Zenkai era. However, as soon as his toolkit got previewed, something fell off. Anybody could tell this Bardock had potential, but ultimately it felt like the developers set the brake for this release.  

In fact, almost every great Effect of his kit is tied to a condition, and not always those are easy to fulfill. The most glaring one is the requirement of a dead ally for Bardock to enable Endurance, but others like needing to get hit to get Arts Draw Speed for a limited amount of counts, or stacking Damage Buffs depending on how many counts he's stayed on the field in total, add up to a hefty sum different of things to consider if you want to get the most out of him. And note that this isn't necessarily a bad thing, many Fighters have Abilities locked behind conditions in this Game, but with Bardock it feels like he needs to fulfill all of those just to compare to some of the top of the Meta, while ideally harsh conditions should be rewarded with more.

Now, to be fair to him, it does feel like Bardock has been a bit misunderstood as a Fighter. In fact, when Endurance is included on a Fighter, the immediate expectation is that he's supposed to be a shield for the Team, which is why it felt so odd that Bardock needs an ally to die before he unlocks that Ability. The reason is that the way his kit is structured, the Endurance is meant to make Bardock last longer in the Match, rather than to protect some ally. More generally, most of Bardock's kit is meant for dragged-out Fights, where Bardock reaches his peak Damage Buff and Abilities wise and can finish a Match successfully. 

Still, he does feel a bit too weak right off the bat, especially at lower stars amount - Which is 6/7*. It's weird to call this low stars, but times have changed -, since his Damage is just too low and he can't really Tank well in that context. If you're lucky enough to have a high Limit Break Bardock, then he has some real potential. At that point he does well both in Teams structured around him, like when he's paired with Fighters that provide Death Buffs such as SP Otherworld Goku YEL, and on more generic Saiyan Teams with SSJ4 Gogeta and Ultra Gogeta. 

In lower Limit Break cases, it feels a bit counter intuitive to have such a selfish Fighter on the Team that can't even get things done by himself when it comes down to it, as Fighters such as Ultra Gogeta and Goku & Vegeta are straight up better than him even when he's at his best.