Best Of

My guess is that this was mostly a data-driven decision. (I work a lot with data, so I hope this is an insightful perspective and worthy of consideration.) Here's what Kabam said:

"…Spider-Woman has been more of a menace than we wanted for her Defender Champion Attribute being a 3.5 out of 5…"

A lot of players are pointing out that there are far worse defenders in the game, and they're not wrong. As stated in the quoted post, there is Serpent, Bullseye, Onslaught, and mentioned elsewhere Dark Phoenix: these are top-tier nightmare defenders that, if you play competitively, either force you to seek out and rank counters, or you ban them outright.

Spider-Woman is formidable, but she isn't that kind of a threat. I suppose that she belongs to the next level category of defenders which are extremely effective, but that highly skilled players might take on without a specific counter. These are champs like Zola and Arcade and Dust: champs that punish you badly when you make a mistake, but you can still take them down sometimes or at least have a decent showing even if you don't have an ideal counter. I assume that 1. these champs are very frequently banned in BG, and 2. rack up numerous wins when they're not banned, because they're such a pain to face.

Spider-Woman is probably the queen of that category of defender. If you let Zola rack up ESP charges, or if you let Arcade activate his autoblock, you're eating a combo. Spider-Woman is different because if she puts power-stings on you, it's up to you to not throw a special. So players think they can avoid the damage, and sometimes they're right. The problem is their damage is crippled and they're probably going to lose a Battlegrounds match unless they can recover (they usually can't). Savvy players quickly figured out how brutal the fumble/power sting combo is, so Spider-Woman is a very strong candidate for a ban in a way that Onslaught, Serpent, and Bullseye aren't because, as nasty as they are, everyone brings Jack or Bastion, Kushala or America, Sinister or Okoye, etc. And when she's not banned, good luck with that fumble/SP1! I'm assuming her ban and win % in Battlegrounds is crazy high.

Personally, rather than see her nerfed, I would have recommended addressing her defensive dominance by introducing more effective counters. One solid new skill champ that can work around fumble and maybe a reworked champ that is to Spider-Woman what Cull is to Zola (Hawkeye? Karnak?), and I think her win % and ban % drop to a more reasonable level. I like that solution because it gives players something worthy to pursue in the game or maybe makes them happier about a champ they might not want to use otherwise, rather than take away a piece of something that they've already invested in.

(Full disclosure: I have an R4 Spider-Woman and I love her ensnare.)

Lol. Trying not to release too many defenders. Joke of the millennium.

Let's be honest, anybody has died vs her due to ensare debuff, what makes her a an annoying defender is the fumble debuff, I'm agree that she is more than a 3.5 ratting defender, but is not for ensare, how have said in other posts if she is so works as intented in attack just changue her defensive abilities.

The worst part is they're going to continue down this path and not correct their course

This is the shittiest balance update. Spider Woman is a perfectly balanced champion. She is the benchmark champion for you, KABAMMMM, how to create champions.

Just fire all your balancing department. They do not know how the champions work, they do not understand what is good for champion and what is not.

Not Serpent, not Leader, not Onslaught, not Photon, none of the champions which really require balancing are touched. But they decide that Spider Woman is imbalanced? Why, just why??

Why not to remove failing all abilities by Domino which she does on constant basis? Why not change champions who DISABLE MASTERIES ABILITIES, which is absolutely innatural.

But hell no, Spider Woman is imbalanced according to you. Big L for you. You are doing everything to kill the game and stop people supporting it with money.

Waddya know??

Afterall trying their best to retain playerbase and have fixed big sales is much better than pissing all over playerbase repeatedly and slapping em with monthly and biweekly sales.

We all know what Kebem decided to do ☠️

#KillMcocAlready

The balance program should have been abolished earlier this year when they said all buffs and nerfs will happen ever 6 months.

I'm sorry but if you give someone a toy and let them play with it for 6 months, you don't get to take it back to trade for something worse. If a champ is bugged, fix them right away. If they aren't working as described fix within 2 months max. Buff a champ? Sure, whenever is good and surprise us with great news. Need to nerf a champ? Don't! You haven't nerfed a champ in ages now. You didn't nerf OP champs like serpent ( dual threat), onslaught (dual threat), enchantress (op defender) so let the idea of a need go. You, as a dev team should learn from your mistakes and not make the same mistakes (like not testing enough to be sure) in the future.

At this point I think we, the players need a global boycott. Not from spending but just take a single day and don't play. Show kabam what it will look like when the player base is all gone. Because that's where we are going with the past 3 months of "updates."

I vote we all skip playing this Sunday.