Velma


 * This article is about the Fighter. For other uses, see Velma (Disambiguation).

Velma, fully known as Velma Dinkley, is a Fighter from the Scooby-Doo Universe in MultiVersus. She was teased on the official Twitter account on March 4th, 2022 and was fully revealed on May 16th, 2022.

Origin
Velma Dinkley is one of the core members of Mystery Inc., the amateurish crime-solving group of friends from the Scooby-Doo franchise. She's a very intelligent, sarcastic, and sharp-witted teenager with a thing for solving mysteries. Velma's considered the smartest member of Mystery Inc., as she's often the first one to decipher the clues and find the culprit's true identity.

According to the main lead writer for MultiVersus, Velma's portrayal in the game comes from an unknown cancelled Scooby-Doo reboot from the 2000's. Some of in-game Velma's personality traits also match with those of her depiction's from the 2010 ''Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated'' animated show, though whether this is intentional or not remains to be seen.

Official Biography
"Jinkies! We've got a mystery to solve!"

Velma has been solving mysteries since most people were still in diapers. With her insatiable appetite for answers and expert nose for knowledge, she’s the perfect mystery-solving machine. These days, she’s the undisputed super sleuth of Mystery, Inc., traveling with her friends to uncover criminals and bust hoaxes wherever she goes. She can sometimes get in over her head when she forgets to take her nose out of her books, but don’t underestimate her - Velma Dinkley can still kick some serious butt when she needs to.

Default Variant
Velma's default appearance is largely based on her general look used in Scooby-Doo media, with a few tweaks here-and-there to match with her design from the 2020 animated movie SCOOB!.

Gameplay
Velma is a Support-type character who specializes in heavy zoning and poking while offering various effects that can aid allies and cripple enemies. Her Neutral Attack launches speech bubble projectiles that, once hitting an enemy/ally, will set them as targeted, causing subsequent bubbles to lock-on to them; only one enemy or ally can be targeted at a time. Almost all of Velma's attacks have disjointed hitboxes, for instance, in her Side Air Attack, she pulls a flashlight and flashes it at her enemies, dealing a fantastic poke.

Her main Passive Ability revolves around collecting clues, which will spawn randomly around the Map, but also have a chance to appear when hitting enemies with certain attacks, namely her Air Side Attack, Up Attack (both ground and air), Ground Down Attack, Neutral Special and Up Air Special. Collecting enough evidence and filling the gauge unlocks a temporary new Ground Down Special for Velma, where she summons the Mystery Machine to pursue the closest enemy; if it catches them, they'll be incapacitated temporarily, and the vehicle will attempt to fall off the blast zone, taking their victim with it. Enemies inside the Mystery Machine can be damaged. The Mystery Machine can be destroyed by enemy attacks. If Velma is ringed out, her evidence meter will reset.

Velma's Neutral Special has Velma pulling a megaphone and delivering a speech in the form a very long ranged beam, which can hit enemies and allies alike, dealing damage and healing, respectively. The final hit of the beam applies targeted and one stack of weakened to enemies, while if it hits an ally, it'll create an additional beam that deals more damage and knockback. This attack is notable as it only goes on cooldown if Velma fully channels it. This ability halts Velma's momentum in the air, being a great mix-up when recovering.

Her Ground Up Special is e decent stage control ability, while its aerial version not only can break armor and spike, but can also be comboed out of her Down Air Attack and Up Air Attack against low percentage enemies, being a fantastic combo starter. Her Grounded Side Special can catch enemies by surprise if properly used, while the aerial version can aid her recovery. Lastly, Down Special is unique as it reduces Velma's and her ally's cooldowns, at the expense of the ability having a very long cooldown itself.

Velma's fantastic utility is offset by her dependency on cooldowns, as well as her frailty. Despite her many disjointed hitboxes, she has limited options against rushdown characters, that can prevent her from using her many ranged abilities. In addition, some of her attacks are very situational since they're telegraphed or slow, giving enemies plenty of time to react, such as her Ground Side Special, which takes very long to charge, being hard to use effectively in 1v1, while being even easier to intercept in 2v2. Lastly, her Ground Side Attack, while being a powerful zoning tool, has a bit of lag between the second and third hits, allowing enemies to dodge away.

For 2v2 fights, Velma is at her best with allies that can provide a solid frontline, to allow her to spam her abilities and speech bubbles safely. Iron Giant and Superman are formidable at that, and the latter has great synergy with Velma thanks to his Ground Up Special to quickly build-up stacks of ice and freeze enemies. Given her Down Special being able to reduce cooldowns, she pairs extremely well with other heavy-cooldown users, such as Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry. One of her most formidable pairings is Morty, who can cause havoc in the battlefield with his grenades while possessing a powerful and versatile kit that synergizes with Velma's, in addition to also being cooldown dependent. Because of her many cooldowns, Velma greatly benefits from Perks that grant cooldown reduction, such as Coffeezilla.

Trivia

 * Velma was the first fighter to be confirmed after the initial reveal trailer for the game.
 * Velma'sCarsComparison.png to the Season 1.02 Patch, Velma used to call a police car rather than the Mystery Machine for her Snoopin' Passive Ability.

External

 * Velma Dinkley on Scoobypedia.