I've spent the last few days playing as mafia boss in Vanessa's Curse. His unique play style has really peaked my interest, and I find quite a lot of joy in mastering the MAFIA BALL movement. I've come to realise that mafia boss's strength lies in horizontal movement, while struggling at gaining height rapidly. If you want to win, you have to not fall off your mafia ball. If you do you are faced with a 2 second cooldown with no jump and walking at a snail's pace. Which I think is a very fun dynamic.

All said and done I think there are some changes that would benefit his play style and make him more fun! And just to be clear, I'm mostly giving feedback for his movement, as combat abilities are not useful for VC.

Umbrella attack:
it's cool but like... THE HIT BOX!!! Shorter range umbrella with more speed, I like it, but I think the hit box needs some tweaking, it rarely hits what's in front of you haha

Mafia ball:
I think this ability is perfect, it's fun and rewards you staying on it for as long as possible, since it's mafia boss' only reliable movement option, the bread and butter.
And also the fact that you can just go through destructible objects while on the ball is so fun, it lets you do stuff you couldn't do as HK, which I really enjoy.
btw you can dsj and tsj off the ball LMAO

Spin:
I think spin needs to be dumbed down to a simple ground pound, no movement in it at all. I think it should behave like HK's ice hat but stay visually different. Make it so Mafia Boss cannot stop spinning during a ice board launch, that way players can't start the dizzy spin debuff mid air, but lower the duration of said debuff from 2.3s(?) to 1.5s.
Mafia boss simply does not need the extra horizontal movement from this ability, I think simplifying things a little will help this playable a lot in having a clear gameplay flow

Ultra Charge:
Damaging stuff serves no purpose in VC, I think this one is just fun for base game, it can remain as is

Knife Throw:
just like ultra charge, this one serves no purpose in VC currently. There may be some potential with it acting like Cappy where, once thrown, the player can jump on it to bounce up, acting like another single jump.

But even with this change I think you would rarely use it, I think it may be useful when you have to gain height, down side is it'll be much slower than HK just doing a double jump. Which I think is balanced and falls in line with the whole idea of mafia boss being better at horizontal speed and not verticality

///EX ABILITIES///
Ex mode is a cool concept, but is missing something. I think the idea is that you can use a stronger and more useful version of an ability. But the problem is that it comes with no cost and no cooldown.
What may be much better is to have it so once EX mode is activated, you can use 1 ex ability and then EX mode goes on cooldown for 10-15 or so seconds. Using EX mode could also reset your ability cooldown, this way players could pull off "double MafiaBall" combos!

Mafia ball EX:
this one is pretty much useless. But I believe I know what would make it good and a useful ability!
Instead of Spin EX having dweller, move dweller to EX MafiaBall. The dweller sphere is attached to the mafia ball, meaning if you get off the mafia ball, and let it fall, the dweller sphere will still be attached to it, meaning you can drop it near some dweller platforms and then be able to use those dweller platforms in combination with other abilities!

This also means you can do most dweller platforming segments in a level since the way the MafiaBall controls is good and reliable, as opposed to EX Spin. Side note but the dweller sphere shouldn't last forever, probably twice the duration of dweller mask.

EX Ultra Charge:
Damage abilities serve no purpose inside VC, I think it's fun for base game, I ban this ability in VC anyways since it's laggy a hell!!! Fine as is.

Ex Knife Throw:
Same as ultra charge! it's not really useful nor do I think it needs to become useful to his movement.

Ex Spin:
Remove the dweller effect, I would say, it having two important abilities in 1 is too much and feels odd design wise. Moving the dweller ability to EX MafiaBall Would be more interesting!
But besides being an ice hat ground pound. It doesn't need much more.

What could be cool however: is that when EX mode is on, it creates a large blade vortex around mafia boss as long as you hold it down. You are stationary but any player that walks near you is whacked as if they got hit by an umbrella. It might open up some fun plays inside VC where you wait for players to come around a corner and use this ability to knock them down a ledge! I'm not sure if it's feasible code wise but that's the idea.
Visually for this you can use Mafia Boss' spin attack particle / sound effect loop. (the one used on the knife throw ability)


Bug Fixes:
-lower "mafia ball!" volume to 0.65
-lower ultra charge spark volume to 0.7
-add player shader function to his materials, he does not dither when the camera gets close to him!

I realize y'all may not want to do all these changes since it's a lot of work, so here are the ones I'd say would matter the most!
-EX MafiaBall change
-Spin / Spin EX change
-Ex ability mechanic change
-bug fixes