**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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Before the year end hiatus on the buff program, we saw Hawkeye, Joe Fix-It, Karnak, Nebula, Guillotine, Thor Rags, and Miles Morales. Guillotine is definitely the weakest link in there, in my opinion, but the rest of those are very solid and I’d argue comparable to the buffs we’ve seen this year.
I’m gonna keep being excited about buffs. There will certainly be duds mixed in (I’m still upset about how Guillotine came out), but overall it’s a good program.
Also, Bishop deals direct damage when he’s bleeding and he has prowess stacks. Tech attackers don’t grant him prowess on landed hits. Nimrod deals energy damage, which is why Bishop still gains prowess in that particular matchup, but Yondu doesn’t (at least on his basics and sp1). So Yondu may be able to safely apply those bleeds. Not sure yet, I’d have to test it out.
But of course because he's not being turned into a one hit KO God, somehow this is an unmitigated failure. It's ridiculous that the people argue that they want Buffs and tune-ups and then get mad when you get what you ask for.
Somebody else on this thread posted about potentially increasing the amount of tune-ups and as much as I would love for them to crank out a few more as quickly as possible, I also know that some people deserve a lot more than just that and they need that extra time and love to become something a lot better than what they are. I'm hoping one day it'll get there.
Again.. It's. Not. Just. About. You.
The intent of Buffs is not, and has never been, to make new Top Tier Champs (Magneto was the exception and not the rule), but to give more people access to more solutions to problems that they may not have. Nimrod is arguably a better Prowess remover than Yondu, but how many people have Nimrod compared to those that have Yondu?
PS: loving the dpx buff
We learned quickly that we overshot there, and needed to reel it back in if we were going to be consistent with these.
It could be an issue on a node like Aggression:Prowess; but in a regular match Yondu works well against Bishop.
Even though mags was overshot according to you, that doesn’t justify 90% of these buffs to be completely lacking and mediocre.
There were plenty of champs that just hit the mark or went slightly above like ultron, kp, falcon, mm, diablo etc. We don’t need more mags level buffs, but why not at least the level of those champs?
I’ve noticed that since the old program stopped and the new started with Psychoman, there seems to be less added to the buffed champs. This isn’t necessarily a comment on how good a champion ends up being, more about the number of abilities tweaked or the number added.
Sometimes that correlates with how good a champion is, but as you point out, Moleman became incredible with a small number of tweaks. Abilities added does usually correlate pretty strongly with utility though, and I think that’s what this program lacks.
Gamora, Mordo, psycho man and yondu all had very little changed. In Gamora’s case, she’s pretty good now though I suspect that’s due to the number of buffs she’s had! Yondu is yet to be seen, but psycho man is almost the same as before. Even the “bigger” updates of the month, storm and DPXF had very little added compared to the overhauls of the previous program.
Now, I know that this was pointed out in the announcement of the rebalancing because the team was spending time looking at new champions and their rebalancing. So I get it.
My question is about whether the game team has realised that these buffs feel kind of (for lack of a better phrase) half hearted, or if it’s a conscious decision.
I say this because DPXF seems to have an ability list of a 2017 champ, with taunt, bleed and a bit of power gain. I mean, that’s not an exaggeration- Sparky has taunt, power drain, stun and evade specials and he was made in July 2017. And it’s the same with Storm last month - prowess, shock immunity, a stun shrug counter and, that’s kinda it.
Psychoman had plenty of issues with his kit, but only got a fury duration increased. Yondu from my first impression, has a counter intuitive kit where you want to bait specials to get damage, but all his utility is around debuffs that stop the opponent gaining power. Gamora feels like the exception considering it’s her third buff, I don’t think we all want these champs to have 3 buffs to get to a rounded out stage. Mordo has great damage now, but, it feels like utility was just avoided.
It feels like either the team don’t want to add enough abilities so it’s a rounded out buff, or they don’t have time to. If they don’t have time to, then why not slow down the production of buffs so that we can get fewer, but better buffs. Quality over quantity. I’d take one Diablo over 5 Psychomans (psycho men?) any day.
I’m sorry for the long question, but the buff program last year was in my mind the absolute best thing to come out in the entire year. It invigorated conversation and hype each month like nothing else did, and all of a sudden it was just gone. The one it’s been replaced with does not give me the same hype that the last one did, and that right now feels by design. The old program didn’t churn out banger after banger, or top end game champs constantly, but it did keep it exciting.
Nobody is asking for all Magneto level, but maybe a few Ultron, falcon, hawkeye level would be nice.
Is the game team leaving these buffs lesser because of a lack of time? Or by design?
Amazing players will always be able to use a champ how they want, for what they want. Make great characters, stop being afraid to give us some great buffs that make us live out our power fantasy. Give us a reason to stick around and look forward to something every month.