time gear
Eternity in an hour
While I do like the insta-shield, the split second nature of it's usage makes it mostly useless for new/casual players and gets the best mileage out of those who have practiced at it's high skill ceiling. It basically amounted to a game of perfect timing for avoiding damage from projectiles or extending the damage range of your jump to attack enemies. I question the usefulness of this for most players as a replacement for the much more obvious practicality of being able to stop your momentum on a dime.
I feel like adding on to what the shield does already would probably be a better alternative. Perhaps still stop your momentum on a dime if there's no target in range, but if there are enemies within a certain radius of you your momentum also gets transferred to them, pushing them away from you? Perhaps tossing badniks fast enough into walls could even do a hit point of damage? This could be useful for when you are moving at high speed and need a quick option to deal with a cluster of enemies, such as the occasional room in Egg Rock. If this could also be paired with the Thok, Sonic would get a lot of great use out of it.
I feel like adding on to what the shield does already would probably be a better alternative. Perhaps still stop your momentum on a dime if there's no target in range, but if there are enemies within a certain radius of you your momentum also gets transferred to them, pushing them away from you? Perhaps tossing badniks fast enough into walls could even do a hit point of damage? This could be useful for when you are moving at high speed and need a quick option to deal with a cluster of enemies, such as the occasional room in Egg Rock. If this could also be paired with the Thok, Sonic would get a lot of great use out of it.