Hi. I can see that you're already having to worry about bugs, and for reference, the diagonal shot on the Crystal Caverns switch with the Energy Beam, while not quite jumping off a "The Big Boo" in a case of overworld Mercy Invincibility to gain relevant height (the treasure chest providing the +1 Max FP refills later to properly have the Cricket Jam, by the way), is something I'm hoping is treated with similar care. I know there was a Boomerang weapon in the original Mother 1, and I'd be happy to try that out, especially on that certain scientist you mentioned.
Either way, the busy work with bug hunting is one more reason why I look through my laundry list of balance suggestions to figure out how to reduce workload in case there are things that either the devs wouldn't already get incentive to handle (Ricochet being heavily undertuned to strong enough agreement, Starman Jr.'s PSI Beam Gamma being possible to cheese by walling his PSI Beam Alpha casts, Fish's Encore tutorial can feel sketchy about balancing, and even the Bestiary suggestion already has Mother 3's Battle Memory existing in the first place), or the proposed changes wouldn't be quick changes. SP provision for hitting enemies with non-damaging debuff attacks or using Spy would be the biggest concern, though I imagine 1.8 SP provided by Spy would be ideal for that at least as a minor economy option that gives up the Defend command's immediate benefit, helped by being bad to chain into an Encore with Lloyd anyway.
In terms of investigating the certain scientist's balancing, I have some proposals that would be worthwhile to improve the design of the first phase, especially since it's worth noting that Bottle Rockets can land Smash hits and one Smash with the BR will instantly delete the first phase's HP that way over a lucky shot as I calculated, which feeds the already surplus favoritism of Lloyd's explosive items--to be fair, I'm agreeing with those hitting hard enough as a way to encourage the player to try them out, but the player shouldn't be overly punished for not doing so due to the explosive items shop being in a potentially unexpected location, which is what makes Scientist's first phase so blind-unfriendly. As follows, besides obvious Skill balancing improvements:
- Scientist's Fire Vulnerability Multiplier increased 1 -> 1.25 (boosts Flaming Shot; I assume the Burn effect's own damage infliction is Burn Element in which case this wouldn't be an OTT boost to Courage Farming; scaling against Lloyd's explosive items would be extremely tame, averting anything strong from happening for runs that use them)
- As a general change, portion on BattleSystem.gd that is "(defense/2.0)" changed to "(defense * (5.0 - target.get_vulnerab_multiplier(action.skill.damageType)) / 8.0)" (would allow minor armor piercing when hitting an elemental weakness for a bit of consistency with reward in weakness usage against armored threats; Scientist would take 22 extra from each Rocket Launcher hit, but with Scientist's still high HP for that, despite the add-up (and honestly, the Rocket Launchers doing Smashes to begin with is a little powerful anyway), the Turns Red portion in general should prove to retain similar gameplay)
I will at least say that the Turns Red phase gets things going with the Encore mechanic, because I have seen Old Robots get cheeky with the Rocket Launchers' gimmick and that can be a serious wrench in planning. Bolstering turn order considerations and having the player consider their available SP are both very nice things, and it helps when rolling HP has to be considered when handling the Encore cast. It's getting there in the first place that's needing streamlining.
Scientist is really the embodiment of how I feel about Mother Encore's balancing where it stands: the ideas are absolutely there and very welcome. Spit and polish being applied would make sure that both blind-friendliness and the game's battle system being kinetic are more consistent. And in the midst of bug hunting and getting the later Acts done, I'm up for providing input that could conceivably shorten and streamline the balancing process.