Needle, Massive, Defense Comparison Testing

Part 2 of my comparison tests among similar drivers, this time focusing on ball types. Since Needle, Massive, and Defense are typically less aggressive than the flat tips, I decided to stick to mirror matches, testing resistance to bursts as well as stamina. Unfortunately I don't have too many layer duplicates to choose from, so I wasn't able to test stamina as much as I wanted to, but will add more tests as my collection grows.
All matches were done using a light launcher with Beylogger attached and alternating first launches every round.

Spriggan Armed Mirror Tests
Summary: I tried to choose a disk with limited contact, as Spriggan is fairly susceptible to burst finishes. While I still ended up with a number of ties—primarily due to same-time burst finishes, it was interesting to see the breakdown of wins between the various drivers. While the different between Massive and Needle wasn't great (most likely due to their similar design), I was surprised to see Defense outlast its opponents in burst finishes to the extent that it did. I would assume that the extra ring surrounding the driver played the largest role in preventing its Beyblade from bursting early. In order to confirm my results and get a better idea of the drivers' stamina capabilities, I decided to do additional mirror tests, this time with Ragnaruk.

Ragnaruk Heavy Mirror Tests
Summary: In this set, Defense still seemed to put up good numbers against Massive and Needle when it came to burst finishes, but the results were less clear-cut than they had been in the Spriggan mirror tests. At the same time, Defense did better stamina-wise than the other two drivers, which I would also attribute to its outer ring's ability to provide some measure of stabilization. Regarding Needle, I was a bit surprised that had almost the same number of spin finishes as Massive, despite it's obviously rougher surface, and that it wasn't able to hold its ground against burst finishes better. Overall, I was fairly surprised by the results—Defense's in particular—and intend to look into testing Defense against more traditional stamina drivers (Claw, Survive, Revolve, etc) in the future to get a better idea of where it stands.
Needle has good use attack in combos like VHN. I won a tourney with it and i've found it does better than stationary Attack.
(May. 21, 2016  12:13 AM)Ultra Wrote: Needle has good use attack in combos like VHN. I won a tourney with it and i've found it does better than stationary Attack.
I've gotten some use out of VHN too & Needle definitely has good attack potential; for these tests, I was just focusing more on its stamina and defensive capabilities.