Brawl Stars: Nano-boosts rebalanced on August 4, 2026 and which fusions Windstock to bet on

The August 4, 2026 maintenance didn't just tweak the general stats of Crow, Starr Nova, or Surge. It also revised 23 Nano-boost values spread across 22 brawlers. This is a block entirely separate from the rest of the balancing: it doesn't concern Ranked, but the modes of the Ramen Rebellion event, meaning precisely the Windstock season's turf.

This block has one flaw for the French-speaking audience: as of August 10, 2026, the "June 2026 Patch Notes" page on the French version of the Supercell blog still stops at the July 8 maintenance. The August 4 section only exists on the English version of the same page. The values listed below come from that version; the labels, however, are those from the French client.

The stakes are very concrete. During Windstock, Nano-boosts keep working, and the fusions obtained via smoothie prizes come to replace them brawler by brawler — Supercell presents fusions as more powerful variants of the same powers. Knowing which of these powers got a boost on August 4 means knowing which brawlers your sips deserve to be spent on.

Nano-boost and fusion: two systems, one single library of powers

The foundation is shared between both seasons: 106 entries to unlock, four rarities (basic, optimized, cybernetic, and quantum), and three powers specific to each brawler. Once an entry is unlocked, it activates on its own as soon as an event mode carries the corresponding modifier, with no action needed from you.

The difference lies in the draw at the start of a match, and it changes everything:

• Nano-boost: the game shows you 2 of the 3 powers and you keep 1. So you can discard the bad one when it comes up.
• Fusion: the game randomly picks 2 of the 3 powers and grants you both, combined. No choice, no filter.

The practical consequence is rarely spelled out: with a Nano-boost, only the best of the three powers really matters, since you're the one deciding. With a fusion, it's the average of the three that determines the quality of your matches. Do the math: with three powers, there are only three possible pairs, and each power appears in two of them. A given power will therefore come up in roughly two-thirds of your matches, whether it's good or bad.

A brawler whose third power is negligible mechanically turns two draws out of three into a half-fusion. A brawler whose three powers are all on par never has a bad match. That's the angle from which the August 4 list should be read.

The nine Nano-boosts weakened on August 4

The Sirius case is the heaviest on the list, and for a purely arithmetical reason. He's the only brawler whose two powers out of three were nerfed on the same day. But out of three powers, each of the three possible pairs necessarily contains one of the two: whichever fusion you draw, you inherit at least one weakened power. There's no good draw. Where a Tick or a Ziggy still keep one draw out of three that's completely untouched, Sirius has none.

Frank's nerf is more readable than it looks: an HP bonus dropping from +50% to +35% on an already massive brawler remains substantial, but it's no longer enough to make him a self-sufficient wall on open maps. Tick's, on the other hand, is structural: going from two extra mines to just one halves the power's output, with no compensation elsewhere.

The fourteen buffed Star Powers

Two clear families stand out. The first groups together the area or range increases: Belle, Penny, Mr. P, Wally, and Bartaba. These are the most universal gains of the bunch, because they depend neither on the map nor on the mode: a wider hitbox lands more hits in Gem Grab just as much as in Brawl Ball, and it even benefits players with poor aim. Belle's leap is the most spectacular change in the update, with a bounce range more than doubled.

The second family gathers the charge accelerations: Buzz, Bo, Edgar, and Angelo. These gains are conditional — they only pay off if you survive long enough to benefit from them — but they stack particularly well in a fusion, since two active powers at once often mean two simultaneous charge sources. The doubling of Buzz's hypercharge bonus, from +50% to +100%, is the best example of what fusion allows that the single Star Power, on its own, didn't.

Three brawlers punished twice, a fourth compensated

The real value of cross-referencing the two August 4 blocks becomes apparent here. Three brawlers were hit simultaneously on their general stats and on their Nano-boost, which means they lose ground everywhere, including in the event modes where they were supposed to compensate.

• Starr Nova loses 300 HP (4,000 → 3,700) and sees her reload speed lengthen, while her second Nano-boost drops from 1.5 to 1 in range.
• Damian sees his punch damage fall from 1,000 to 800, and the size of that same punch reduced on the Nano-boost side.
• Max takes a super charge rate reduced from 92 to 80, in addition to the speed boost brought down from +150% to +100% on his second Nano-boost.

A.R.K.A.D. is the counter-example to remember. His super charge rate drops from 99 to 80 in the general block, which makes him noticeably slower to get going — but his second Nano-boost gains 15 points of super area (+35% → +50%). In other words: the brawler loses ground in Ranked and remains fully recommendable in the event modes, where his Gear Up expands the damage amplifier that makes him so valuable in a team. So don't cross him off your Gear Up list just because of a nerf you read about in the other block.

Turning all this into a spending plan

Smoothie prizes are obtained through daily wins, mega quests, the Cursed Tower, side quests, and creator QR codes. Each prize offers five cups, of which you open three, each cup containing zero to three sips: the actual yield therefore ranges between one and nine sips per prize. In other words, your flow is irregular and your trade-offs matter.

Three simple rules follow from the above:

• Prioritize brawlers whose kit you already play. A Gear Up doesn't improve anything if you don't know how to position the brawler: it amplifies a foundation, it doesn't replace it.
• Serve the August 4 winners with passive effects first. Belle, Penny, Mr. P, Wally, Bartaba, and Ricochet all saw a range, hitbox, or gadget availability grow. These are bonuses that apply unconditionally, and therefore survive the random draw of the Gear Up.
• Push Sirius to the bottom of the list. He's the only brawler in the batch for which every possible pair contains a weakened power. No other entry has this flaw.

A word on Nano-boosts already unlocked: they don't disappear. A Gear Up obtained for a brawler who already had one simply replaces it. So you lose nothing by getting a Gear Up on an already-equipped brawler, but you also don't get a resource back in exchange — hence the value of prioritizing brawlers you hadn't yet covered during NanoNoodles.

Cursed Tower: the side effect few guides mention

The Cursed Tower is both a source of smoothie prizes and the main outlet for your Gear Ups. Reminder of how it works: five floors, a map and a mode imposed per floor, an initial selection of 5 to 12 brawlers all maxed out (buffs included), a different brawler required at each floor, and only one tower available per day as long as the event is running. You need at least eight brawlers on your account and 325 trophies to enter, and a session without a single defeat unlocks the "Unbeatable" title.

The detail that changes everything: the proposed selection favors brawlers with fusion powers or Nano-boosts that you already own. That's good news when your fusions cover brawlers you've mastered. It's bad news in the opposite case: every fusion unlocked on a brawler you don't know how to play increases the probability that it will appear in your pool, where it will take up a useful slot and cost you a floor.

The reasoning is therefore reversed compared to a classic collection: in the Cursed Tower, concentrating your fusions on a core of versatile brawlers is better than spreading them out. Five well-placed fusions produce a better selection than fifteen randomly distributed ones, because the system fills your pool with what you've unlocked, not with what you play well.

What to check in the coming days

Two points remain to be monitored. The first is the publication of the French version of the August 4 section: until it's online, the official FR labels of the powers concerned aren't consultable other than in-game, and it's better to rely on the numerical values than on the secondhand translations circulating. The second is how Supercell will handle any patches during Windstock: the double season covers nine weeks, and the two maintenances that have already passed, those of July 8 and August 4, were both added at the top of the June page rather than in a dedicated article. That's where you'll need to look.

In the meantime, the useful takeaway from the update fits in one sentence: fourteen brawlers have seen their fusion floor raised, eight have seen it lowered, and the randomness of the draw makes this floor far more important than the ceiling. Spend your sips on the fourteen, and save Sirius for last.