Change nebula’s regen mechanic so she doesn’t need to be hit to activate. Her hp, armor and bp are soooo low that a 6* can’t survive a combo to benefit the regen, and her chip damage from blocking while acquiring charges is massive. Maybe make it something like ultron. Or once per fight when she falls below X% life regen Y% per charge she currently has.
Actually, the regen has an interesting utility in surviving L3s, as she regens damage taken instead of a set amount. So, if you can confidently survive, maybe you have heimdall on the team, you could eat an L3 with a charge on deck, survive at 1%, and heal back up to full. You could use it to make her a sustainable questing champ as long as you can eat one L3 to get her to full health every fight
That regen isn’t useless, it’s just a little niche
It's been ages since I've done a Champion Rework, and I feel motivated to give Storm a critical eye toward improving her as a Champion. (Based upon a Rank 5/50 4-Star Champion; Sig Level 99)
Rationale:Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm inflicts a Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent, it has a 100% chance to also inflict an Armor Break debuff, reducing the opponent's Armor Rating by 550 for 5.5 seconds.
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm receives up to 60% Coldsnap and Incinerate Resistance based on Stored Power. She also reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Iron Willpower (Passive): Storm has a 75% chance to ignore Taunt Debuffs and Reversed Controls. Additionally, she gains +1000 physical and energy resistance against psychic attacks. Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Mist and Fog Mode: Pulling the mists about her to protect herself, basic attacks against Storm have a 20% chance to Miss. Whenever an attack misses, Storm gains a Fury buff, increasing her Attack rating by 10% for 6.0 seconds.
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted. If the opponent is pushed back into the wall, they instantly take 967.2 direct damage. Well-Timed Blocks: Due to her extensive combat training, well-timed blocks grant Storm a passive Precision buff and a passive Cruelty buff for 8.5 seconds, increasing both her Crit Rating and Critical Damage by 10% (Max Stacks: 5).
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm inflicts a Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent, it has a 100% chance to also inflict an Armor Break debuff, reducing the opponent's Armor Rating by 550 for 5.5 seconds.
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
The Power Burn+Power Gain mechanic is an interesting one. I definitely like the idea of having Storm gaining power, but only when the opponent loses power via Power Burn - it's a new layer to abilities we've seen before, and on paper, it seems like fun to play. However, I must say I'm skeptical as to the overall effectiveness of the ability. I don't know if I'm reading into this right, but it seems to me that you'll want to keep up at least one of the Shocks/Poisons/Coldsnaps in order to continually burn power with specials, and then several more of each to gain significant amounts of power. I'd think the most effective route to go would be by using Arctic Wind mode in order to start the loop, and then play aggressively in order to keep Shocks up so as to continually spam specials and keep the loop going. The bit that worries me (although I'm not sure if this is just my nature to play defensively or not) is that the Shocks caused on the special attacks will expire one second before the power gain has fully run its course, so I can see it being a little tricky to keep up, since you won't be gaining the full effect before your Shocks expire. I don't see the point of the Armor Break, and it might be a little too much in a pretty long Sig as is, but it's a small effect and I'm sure it'll have its uses somewhere, so it should be fine.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm receives up to 60% Coldsnap and Incinerate Resistance based on Stored Power. She also reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Iron Willpower (Passive): Storm has a 75% chance to ignore Taunt Debuffs and Reversed Controls. Additionally, she gains +1000 physical and energy resistance against psychic attacks.
OK, I like this representation of Storm's psychic resistance - nothing too OP, but not insignificant either. And the resistance to the DOTs she inflicts is a nice touch too, although the way I see the Sig playing out, I don't think Storm will be at high levels of Power too much, so that might negate a little bit of the benefit of Coldsnap and Incinerate resistance there.
Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Mist and Fog Mode: Pulling the mists about her to protect herself, basic attacks against Storm have a 20% chance to Miss. Whenever an attack misses, Storm gains a Fury buff, increasing her Attack rating by 10% for 6.0 seconds.
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
This is the real crux of Storm's set, I think, and having this wide variety of debuffs to inflict a la BWCV will definitely give her nice utility. Up against a stacked Spidey? Use Arctic Wind Mode. Want more uptime on the Signature ability Power Gain/Burn loop? Lightning Mode is the way to go. And I now realize that the Armor Break, coupled with Acid Rain Mode, can take out Acid Wash Mysterio. Nice. I only have two problems, and they're relatively minor - 1) I don't see Mist and Fog Mode being too useful, but I like the idea of it. The relatively low RNG chance for a nice, if not entirely significant, damage boost means this one is probably going to get passed over a lot. And 2) would it always cycle in the same order? If so, that means you're going to have to block and hold at the beginning of each fight just to get out of the least useful mode, and you might be taking a lot of block damage that way. An auto-change mechanic might be nice, but at the same time that might hurt more than it helps. Honestly, I see the best way to use this as being enter fight ----> use a special ---> stun ----> change to your desired mode, and then run it from there.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Yo, Archangel called. He wants his mechanics back.
In all seriousness, I like the idea of combining debuffs. These in theory should be relatively easy to keep up, since you're constantly inflicting Shock on Special Attacks, and don't do as much damage as AA's Neurotoxins, so not so bad. I'd like to see more done with them, however. Perhaps you could go all the way and tie the Signature Ability to Tempest charges instead, since they last longer, and that would give them an extra layer of usability for the heal reduction/evade mitigation that you're losing by consuming Poison/Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted. If the opponent is pushed back into the wall, they instantly take 967.2 direct damage. Well-Timed Blocks: Due to her extensive combat training, well-timed blocks grant Storm a passive Precision buff and a passive Cruelty buff for 8.5 seconds, increasing both her Crit Rating and Critical Damage by 10% (Max Stacks: 5).
I'd say this is similar to the Armor Break from the sig - small, nice to have, but it's a little random. I see these as being definitely nice bonuses that you'll like to have, but I wouldn't mind not having them, especially since they add to an already pretty complex kit. I see where they're coming from, though, so good job on representing the character well, both here and just in general.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
The Specials themselves are pretty simple. Not too complex here. I worry as to how the mass DOT flood from the SP3 will work in tandem with Tempest charges and the Signature Ability, though. If it triggers all six possible debuffs, would the two shocks combine to make two Tempest charges? If so, which two debuffs would be consumed? The two poisons, the two coldsnaps, or one of each (that would be weird)? And again, the Signature Ability Power Gain seems like it'd be pretty small and difficult to keep up since these have such short durations. I still like the idea of tying them to Tempest charges, which last longer and thus make the Power Gain loop easier to maintain.
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
These synergies are nice to have. Nothing necessary, and I see the other champions in the synergy gaining more than storm, to be honest (especially Black Panther), but overall, these are really well balanced and solid synergies.
As for the entire kit, it certainly makes Storm... not boring. The use of different debuffs sounds a little weird, but the justification with different kinds of weather makes it work. (Acid rain for Poison - inspired idea!) If this were to actually happen, I'd see Storm becoming more useful for sure, and definitely way more fun to play. It'd be tough to juggle the rotations, but you can do so much with this kit that it should be worth it. For the last time, my main problem would be the signature ability power gain, as I think it's a little too much work for not enough gain, but tying it to Tempest would fix problems with both abilities. Overall, it's certainly no different from the rest of your kits, @Bodhizen - pure excellence!
Thank you for reading, and, if I'm being honest, let me know which kits I should review or take on myself. I'm itching to do something more for this community.
Thank you kindly for the review of Storm! Let me answer some of your questions...
The Power Burn+Power Gain mechanic is an interesting one. I definitely like the idea of having Storm gaining power, but only when the opponent loses power via Power Burn - it's a new layer to abilities we've seen before, and on paper, it seems like fun to play. However, I must say I'm skeptical as to the overall effectiveness of the ability. I don't know if I'm reading into this right, but it seems to me that you'll want to keep up at least one of the Shocks/Poisons/Coldsnaps in order to continually burn power with specials, and then several more of each to gain significant amounts of power. I'd think the most effective route to go would be by using Arctic Wind mode in order to start the loop, and then play aggressively in order to keep Shocks up so as to continually spam specials and keep the loop going. The bit that worries me (although I'm not sure if this is just my nature to play defensively or not) is that the Shocks caused on the special attacks will expire one second before the power gain has fully run its course, so I can see it being a little tricky to keep up, since you won't be gaining the full effect before your Shocks expire. I don't see the point of the Armor Break, and it might be a little too much in a pretty long Sig as is, but it's a small effect and I'm sure it'll have its uses somewhere, so it should be fine.
So, the Signature Ability is meant to ensure that you can deal with a variety of opponents and keep cycling power into Storm (as her "storm" rages on). You can keep throwing other debuffs down to keep burning power with the Special Attacks, but take (as an example) Special 2... It currently deals tons of damage and is the best thing about the existing Storm champion. That's going to net you quite a bit of power in your Power Meter... Perhaps even enough to reliably throw down Special attacks with decent frequency when you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter. If you've got 6 debuffs on your opponent, that's an additional 18% of your Power Meter. I didn't feel that was too shabby. You can still be throwing more Shocks (or other debuffs) on while the Power Gain is active, but it won't do anything, since it only triggers once you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter.
The Armor Break disables some of the nonsense that you may have to deal with when your opponent has Armor up, such as Iceman's Ice Armor, Emma Frost's Diamond Form, or Killmonger's Reverberation. She needed something to effectively deal with such shenanigans.
OK, I like this representation of Storm's psychic resistance - nothing too OP, but not insignificant either. And the resistance to the DOTs she inflicts is a nice touch too, although the way I see the Sig playing out, I don't think Storm will be at high levels of Power too much, so that might negate a little bit of the benefit of Coldsnap and Incinerate resistance there.
The resistance is explicitly to psychically generated effects, like Emma Frost's specials, or Psylocke's psychic knife. Reducing the damage from Shock effects by 90% allows her to potentially heal off of Shock effects like Omega Red can potentially heal off of Bleed effects (with the Willpower mastery). But, it's reflective of the powers that Storm has in canon. As for the resistance being tied to her Power Meter, she's got that now with Shock resistance. It gives you a reason to either play her offensively, or to hold on to her Power to negate some of her opponent's best benefits.
This is the real crux of Storm's set, I think, and having this wide variety of debuffs to inflict a la BWCV will definitely give her nice utility. Up against a stacked Spidey? Use Arctic Wind Mode. Want more uptime on the Signature ability Power Gain/Burn loop? Lightning Mode is the way to go. And I now realize that the Armor Break, coupled with Acid Rain Mode, can take out Acid Wash Mysterio. Nice. I only have two problems, and they're relatively minor - 1) I don't see Mist and Fog Mode being too useful, but I like the idea of it. The relatively low RNG chance for a nice, if not entirely significant, damage boost means this one is probably going to get passed over a lot. And 2) would it always cycle in the same order? If so, that means you're going to have to block and hold at the beginning of each fight just to get out of the least useful mode, and you might be taking a lot of block damage that way. An auto-change mechanic might be nice, but at the same time that might hurt more than it helps. Honestly, I see the best way to use this as being enter fight ----> use a special ---> stun ----> change to your desired mode, and then run it from there.
The different modes are meant to represent different powers that Storm can summon with her mutant abilities. I wanted to have a way to represent that in a way that could be useful as a champion in the contest. Sure, she's going to start in Fog & Mist mode, which is a defensive mode (which guarantees that she's going to be more useful on Alliance War defense), and every time an attack misses, she gets a Fury buff. That means that on average, one hit in a combo will miss, and she'll counter with a harder strike. I don't find that mode to be without good use on defense or offense. As for the other modes, yeah they're going to cycle in the same order, so you can predict what's coming up next in order to get into the mode you want. The block is no longer than the amount of time Nebula has to hold a block to gain a charge, so you can change modes pretty quickly and easily. Parry-stun, then change modes. Pretty simple.
Yo, Archangel called. He wants his mechanics back.
In all seriousness, I like the idea of combining debuffs. These in theory should be relatively easy to keep up, since you're constantly inflicting Shock on Special Attacks, and don't do as much damage as AA's Neurotoxins, so not so bad. I'd like to see more done with them, however. Perhaps you could go all the way and tie the Signature Ability to Tempest charges instead, since they last longer, and that would give them an extra layer of usability for the heal reduction/evade mitigation that you're losing by consuming Poison/Coldsnap.
I did purposefully use Archangel's mechanics here, but I felt that an über-strong "storm" power was perfectly appropriate to the character. The Tempest can really mess an opponent up, and since she's got a good kit of other damage effects, she didn't need something as strong as Archangel's Neurotoxin ability. The point wasn't to take that mechanic and outdo it. Yes, she's going to be consuming some of her damage dealing abilities to gain heal reduction & evasion mitigation, but it's no more or less powerful than Archangel's ability here.
I'd say this is similar to the Armor Break from the sig - small, nice to have, but it's a little random. I see these as being definitely nice bonuses that you'll like to have, but I wouldn't mind not having them, especially since they add to an already pretty complex kit. I see where they're coming from, though, so good job on representing the character well, both here and just in general.
I really wanted to properly represent Storm's powers, so thank you. As for the benefits you get from Heavy attacks and Well-Timed Blocks, they should be small, but useful. The Well-Timed Blocks, in this case, can be pretty powerful. You can Parry/Stun and build up to +50% Critical Chance and Critical Damage. Now throw down a Special Attack... That can gain you more Power in your Power Meter, plus debuff damage, plus additional damage from Power Burn. That means that Storm can throw down a pretty powerful wallop! Those Heavy Attacks, though, are really powerful if you think about it. They're going to force your opponent back, which means that they can't retaliate as fast because they have to get back over to you... Even if they successfully resisted your Heavy.
The Specials themselves are pretty simple. Not too complex here. I worry as to how the mass DOT flood from the SP3 will work in tandem with Tempest charges and the Signature Ability, though. If it triggers all six possible debuffs, would the two shocks combine to make two Tempest charges? If so, which two debuffs would be consumed? The two poisons, the two coldsnaps, or one of each (that would be weird)? And again, the Signature Ability Power Gain seems like it'd be pretty small and difficult to keep up since these have such short durations. I still like the idea of tying them to Tempest charges, which last longer and thus make the Power Gain loop easier to maintain. With everything else in the kit, the Specials didn't need to be complicated. So... If you have some active Shock charges, say from being in Lightning Mode, you can get up to 4 Tempest charges, doing 10,316.8 damage over 15 seconds. I would imagine that would be quite welcome, in addition to the damage from Special 3, plus up to 2 more Shock debuffs dealing an additional 2149.4 damage over 6 seconds. So, just on the extra damage from Special 3 (not counting the damage that Special 3 does on its own), you're doing 12,466.2 more damage over the course of that 15 seconds... Before potential Critical Damage from Well-Timed Blocks kicks in, and before the Power Burn from the Special Attack against an opponent who probably has their Armor reduced. It forms a combination of effects that can really tear your opponent apart.
The Coldsnap and Poison debuffs would combine randomly by design, so you're going to chance what you gain or lose from triggering debuffs with Tempest (Passive) Ability. It makes her less predictable, but requires some skill during play in terms of what kind of Mode you want to be in, and for how long.
As for the Power Gain loop... It only triggers if you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter, so it's going to be a nice addition, not something you're going to be able to loop around all the time anyway... Nor should it be. Storm is meant to have some power control utility, but not to be a primary power control Champion.
These synergies are nice to have. Nothing necessary, and I see the other champions in the synergy gaining more than storm, to be honest (especially Black Panther), but overall, these are really well balanced and solid synergies.
I try to make my Synergies well-balanced! Thank you!
As for the entire kit, it certainly makes Storm... not boring. The use of different debuffs sounds a little weird, but the justification with different kinds of weather makes it work. (Acid rain for Poison - inspired idea!) If this were to actually happen, I'd see Storm becoming more useful for sure, and definitely way more fun to play. It'd be tough to juggle the rotations, but you can do so much with this kit that it should be worth it. For the last time, my main problem would be the signature ability power gain, as I think it's a little too much work for not enough gain, but tying it to Tempest would fix problems with both abilities. Overall, it's certainly no different from the rest of your kits, @Bodhizen - pure excellence! Thank you very much for your kind words! I don't want these Champions to be "powerful, but boring", and I don't think they deserve to be "weak and not fun to play" either.
It's been ages since I've done a Champion Rework, and I feel motivated to give Storm a critical eye toward improving her as a Champion. (Based upon a Rank 5/50 4-Star Champion; Sig Level 99)
Rationale:Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm inflicts a Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent, it has a 100% chance to also inflict an Armor Break debuff, reducing the opponent's Armor Rating by 550 for 5.5 seconds.
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm receives up to 60% Coldsnap and Incinerate Resistance based on Stored Power. She also reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Iron Willpower (Passive): Storm has a 75% chance to ignore Taunt Debuffs and Reversed Controls. Additionally, she gains +1000 physical and energy resistance against psychic attacks. Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Mist and Fog Mode: Pulling the mists about her to protect herself, basic attacks against Storm have a 20% chance to Miss. Whenever an attack misses, Storm gains a Fury buff, increasing her Attack rating by 10% for 6.0 seconds.
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted. If the opponent is pushed back into the wall, they instantly take 967.2 direct damage. Well-Timed Blocks: Due to her extensive combat training, well-timed blocks grant Storm a passive Precision buff and a passive Cruelty buff for 8.5 seconds, increasing both her Crit Rating and Critical Damage by 10% (Max Stacks: 5).
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
I love a ton of what you put in here, and like @HeroBoltsy basically said, the acid rain causing Poison effects is very inspired.
I also believe someone else said this and I've said this before about psychic resistances that affect susceptibility to Reversed Controls by Emma: 1. They either have to be on from the start; 2. have a chance to turn on or fail to turn on from the start; 3. be turned on at a fixed obvious point and stay on; or 4. be on for a while then turn off for the remainder of the match; otherwise it gets too hard for a player to keep track of and react to in time if it's going to affect someone this time and not another. People's reflexes won't keep up to know when "Reverse Fails" in the space of time they'd be gearing up to swipe forward to go backward.
What may be a good alternative to put in this time, since Storm's electric, faraday cage-like abilities is canonically resistant (but not immune) to psychic attack, is grant her one of the following 1. Storm takes X% less damage from psychic attacks than other champions always 2. Storm takes +X% less damage from psychic attacks each time she successfully evades or parries one, until they deal 0 damage even if struck directly 3. Storm auto-evades the first 3 (or whatever suitable number of) psychic attacks directed at her, or 4. "Storm's increased psychic resistance and mental training resists psychic attacks making them 75% less effective the first time she receives a direct hit from one. This resistance is worn down by 25% until she is susceptible to the full damage. Each Special Attack Storm lands on a psychic increases her resistance by 25% until she is up to 75% resistant to the effects again." - this would keep her effects reversed but honor her resistance by taking less damage if she fails to dodge (in the case of Emma Frost), lose less power and health (in the case of Psylocke), and even reverse less healing and take less damage (in the case of MODOK) or less degeneration and shorter concussions from Mr. Sinister.
Now in general I'm curious about the ideation of some of these redesigns when we do them. I keep my changes relatively modest because I think in terms of what is more likely to be taken seriously if a Game Engineer was actually going to take our suggestions to heart, but others have seemingly made some of these champs god tier in their damage output or their utility. This applies a bit to this Storm design because her entire variety of different ways of dealing extra damage are all in her base abilities.
Here's a modest example using Acid Rain and Mist: 1. When Storm strikes an opponent 100% of the base attack rating is dealt directly plus up to an additional 150% instantly as Shock Damage depending on how full the opponent's power meter is (equivalent of +50% per Power Bar) 2. If Storm's opponent is Shock Immune, the additional damage fails and Storm instead flash floods the area with Acid Rain, inflicting Poison dealing +75% of the original attacks damage over 3 seconds (intentionally less potent than her max since lightning would be her primary weapon) 3. Each time Storm evades an attack using dexterity she affects the barometric pressure of the battle arena (indicated by a meter) when pressure is high enough, she coats the area in Fog that causes the opponents to have a 50% chance to miss any attack, and causes auto-evasion abilities in her opponent to fail. If Storm evades (auto or dex) a basic attack in fog she gains a Precision buff for 6 seconds; if she evades a Special Attack she gains Prowess. 4. Many other weather related effects are activated when paired with Elemental or certain Mystical champs via Synergies (I like your ones with Magik or Scarlet Witch, where it would be appropriate to control Power Gain via her lightning - not as a base ability, she's not an inherent Control champ, but it would be great utility to hit a near full power opponent for the extra shock damage and not push them to Sp3 counter); Coldsnap with Iceman or Loki; % chance to trigger Acid Rain with every special attack with Namor; % chance to Armor Break with any Thor; % chance to cause Heat Stroke with Human Torch, Sunspot or Mephisto (dealing more intense heat to Shock immune champs)
Again, I like what you did, I just think having everything in base ability would be too much for developers to ever consider giving her when they probably think she's pretty powerful (in older design terms) to begin with that they just want to spruce her up with a few extra base effects that are fitting but don't give her dominance over every other champ.
It's been ages since I've done a Champion Rework, and I feel motivated to give Storm a critical eye toward improving her as a Champion. (Based upon a Rank 5/50 4-Star Champion; Sig Level 99)
Rationale:Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm inflicts a Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent, it has a 100% chance to also inflict an Armor Break debuff, reducing the opponent's Armor Rating by 550 for 5.5 seconds.
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm receives up to 60% Coldsnap and Incinerate Resistance based on Stored Power. She also reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Iron Willpower (Passive): Storm has a 75% chance to ignore Taunt Debuffs and Reversed Controls. Additionally, she gains +1000 physical and energy resistance against psychic attacks. Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Mist and Fog Mode: Pulling the mists about her to protect herself, basic attacks against Storm have a 20% chance to Miss. Whenever an attack misses, Storm gains a Fury buff, increasing her Attack rating by 10% for 6.0 seconds.
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted. If the opponent is pushed back into the wall, they instantly take 967.2 direct damage. Well-Timed Blocks: Due to her extensive combat training, well-timed blocks grant Storm a passive Precision buff and a passive Cruelty buff for 8.5 seconds, increasing both her Crit Rating and Critical Damage by 10% (Max Stacks: 5).
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
To be honest, I found it hard to know where to start with Storm. I can see that this is something you've worked hard on; but she just seems crazily overpowered and able to do almost anything -
Power Burn
Stun
Shock
Coldsnap
Poison
Novel Passive DoT effects (Tempest charges)
Direct physical damage on Heavies
Potent 'almost better than immunities' resistances to Shock, Coldsnap, and Incinerate'
Resistance to Taunt
Miss (evade-type) mechanic (20%!)
Armour Break
Cruelty
Precision
Clearly you have a great fondness for Storm and want to develop an ability for every skill she's shown in comics. But consider how she compares (in comics) with her peers: however much we like and respect Storm, is she really better combat-trained than Wolverine? Daredevil? Captain America? It's she really more iron-willed than Magneto? Dr Doom? Red Skull? And whilst she might cope in the desert sun, is she actually more fire-resistant than Hulk? Thing? Juggernaut?
There are some fun ideas, but taken as a whole, it just seems way, way too much. I really like the idea of combat modes (acid rain! It's absurd, but I love it!); and developing the use of wind, fog, Shock and so on. Maybe even a watered-down Poison ability and a 3% Miss* mechanic, but I really can't get behind the Power Burn, Armour Break, and Incinerate resistance.
*You might not think 20% Miss is all that high; but with that chance on every basic attack, then statistically, she would avoid an attack in 68% of five-hit combos! Although I guess any five-hit combo when an attack doesn't Miss will inevitably switch her mode, given that she only has to be forced to hold block for 0.9 seconds...
For me, this one's just too much in it's current form @Bodhizen, though I'd love to see one or two of the suggestions incorporated by the team. Sorry!
To be honest, I found it hard to know where to start with Storm. I can see that this is something you've worked hard on; but she just seems crazily overpowered and able to do almost anything -
Power Burn
Stun
Shock
Coldsnap
Poison
Novel Passive DoT effects (Tempest charges)
Direct physical damage on Heavies
Potent 'almost better than immunities' resistances to Shock, Coldsnap, and Incinerate'
Resistance to Taunt
Miss (evade-type) mechanic (20%!)
Armour Break
Cruelty
Precision
Clearly you have a great fondness for Storm and want to develop an ability for every skill she's shown in comics. But consider how she compares (in comics) with her peers...
...For me, this one's just too much in it's current form @Bodhizen, though I'd love to see one or two of the suggestions incorporated by the team. Sorry!
You've said everything I was thinking about the range of abilities shown here @Magrailothos . Despite what we think about their comic depictions we also have to think about how they compare in game to the average champ.
I agree no champ should have only one mechanic anymore, and for that I love the alternative to Lightning that presents itself in the form of Acid Rain. All that he needed was a suitable mechanism to switch when needed.
Since Kabam favors having things set in threes, a switch to the 3rd ability "Mist" that moves away from damage variety/capability to evasion utility should be the max to her Base Kit. Everything else should come, at most, from Synergies if at all.
Synergies are appropriate to include that make historical references to other forms Storm has had across the multiverse and they limit her having all of the abilities listed at once and being so overpowered
Fake Norse Godess of Thunder
when Loki gave her Stormcaster (appropriate for a synergy with Loki, obviously, and maybe a Thor or all of them, particularly Jane's version of Thor who would relate as the other Thunder Godess in game)
MAGE
when Magik was raised by a version of Storm that was tapped into her Mystic potential (appropriate to synergize with Magik and maybe SW to get to the power control)
BLOODSTORM
when Dracula made her a vampire and the alternate Earth version of her that spent more time as a vamp (give her Health Regen abilities from a Synergy with Blade in the absence of Dracula in-game - which would be appropriate for Storm to have a chance at healing that is listed to be common to Mutants)
EMMA FROST POSESSED
Emma has hijacked both Storm and Iceman's bodies and powers at points in time (appropriate to have a Synergy with both Emma and Iceman that benefits them too) but could touch on Coldsnap and Power Sting capabilities that way
The mental resistance, although canon, isn't as high and consistent as I think would merit being a must have for Storm, but I do think reduced damage for a few hits would cover that, while still getting reversed. If anything, I'm in favor of having Reversed Controls shielded from all teammates if 2 psychics are on a roster (e.g. Phoenix and Psylocke with Storm, same as Phoenix and Psylocke with Hawkeye) or at least to X-characters, signifying how they tended to protect each other from psychics (any 2 of Psylocke, Phoenix, Cable or Emma Frost protecting themselves and the 3rd through 5th X teammates) and a copy version for villains based on Mr. Sinister and MODOK extending it to villains or the Illuminati.
To Delve a little deeper separately on the topic of Blade in a Synergy with Storm, obviously every mutant cannot just have a Wolverine-level version of healing, but Storm is uniquely positioned to benefit from the opponent's power level during her specials.
A fair trade off to that would be to present the choice to us Summoners of, similar to Blade, leeching her own stored power to regenerate health. The difference is hers would be proportionately weaker or slightly better than Blade's rate of healing (for same Tier, Rank, Level and Sig) based on how high the opponent's Power Meter is.
The synergy could be called "Forged by Vampirism" or whatever else is appropriate since she did not get hers from Blade and similarly they did not get their vampirism from the same vampire.
Similar applications can be made for Emma, Cyclops (NXS) and Colossus (Classic) in a Phoenix 5 synergy to introduce minor regen or at least Resurrection mechanics like Phoenix. And also via a Synergy (with Loki and/or Emma) maybe Iceman can Health Steal up to 5% health from an opponent suffering from Coldsnap or Frostbite while his armor is reforming (setting up very limited conditions for an already strong character).
Archangel and Cyclops (BT) could probably get some healing if/when Apocalypse is introduced.
I have some ideas that can make nebula the OP queen of shock damage.
Heavy attacks: Currently, she inflicts a shock debuff lasting 6 seconds. Increase this to 30 seconds but don’t increase the potency.
When attacking shocked opponents: When nebula attacks a shocked opponent, she gains an shock charge. Additionally, nebula steals 5% of a bar of power against shocked opponents.
Blocking: If the opponent is shocked, nebula gains 1000 (or about 35%) block proficiency.
These changes are small but effective. The ideal rotation is parry-heavy at the start to activate the long shock, attack into the opponent until you have 20 shock charges, parry and launch sp2. Rinse and repeat.
Nebula can now build shock charges while attacking. The ability to steal power gives her even more power control and allows her to build to sp2 faster. She currently has low block proficiency but this change would make up for that, although you wouldn’t need to hold block as much. Nebula would require a higher skill level (need to be able to intercept and not rely on parry) in order to access her high damage.
I think these changes are balanced and aren’t too major to put into game. Tell me what you think
Thank you all for your input. You're right... I did go overboard on Storm and she needs to be dialed down. I'm going to repost a more moderate version of her that I hope will be more in keeping with the power levels of current Champions.
Here's a retooled Storm. (Based upon a Rank 5/50 4-Star Champion; Sig Level 99)
Rationale:Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
PREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):
Was doing some arena today, and I came across Gambit, who IMO is one of the cooler X-Men characters, even if he isn't part of my childhood the same way Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and the original five were. I thought it pretty sad to see that such a beloved character was so neglected and, dare I say, useless in game. Right now, Gambit has a Stun on his SP1... and that's it, really. I mean, he has the Blocking mechanic, but is it really all that useful? I'd like to see him have a little more relevant abilities, while also not being completely overpowered. More on par with the aforementioned Nightcrawler than anything - not a god tier, but more a champion that you say to yourself, "Yeah, I'm happy with that," when you pull them. With that in mind: Gambit.
ABILITIES: Ante Up: Gambit starts the fight with two Kinetic Energy charges. Whenever he lands a Critical Hit, he gains one Kinetic Energy charge. Max: 10.
Kinetic Energy Charges: Gambit's ability accuracy is increased by a flat 5%, and the duration of his inflicted debuffs is increased by a flat 5%, for every Kinetic Energy charge he has. This does not affect any Masteries, or any effects granted from Masteries. However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 0 seconds. This rate is increased by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is.
This is Gambit's main mechanic - Kinetic Energy Charges. These will improve your ability accuracy on specials, allowing you to guarantee the effects of Paralyze or Concussion (I'll come back to that) and extend them for longer durations. However, they don't affect Parry, and they are difficult to keep up at higher Power levels. That'll be important later on.
Passive: If Gambit has five or less Kinetic Energy charges, his fourth light attack is Guaranteed to Crit.
This will be your main source of Kinetic Energy charges, and will allow you to maintain a steady supply of Kinetic Energy Charges. However, if you want to get the full benefit of the Kinetic Energy Charges, you'll have to get a little lucky.
Roll the Dice: Whenever Gambit uses a Heavy Attack, he converts all Kinetic Energy charges to Prowess buffs, which last indefinitely and provide +20% Special Attack Damage. Max Stacks: 5 Special Attacks:At the end of every Special Attack, consume all Prowess buffs.
Remember how Kinetic Energy charges fall off faster and are harder to maintain at high Power levels? Well, Gambit's Prowess buffs don't! Therefore, you can hold onto these as long as you want as your Power goes up to boost your Special Attack, while sacrificing some reliability in your abilities, until you're ready to unleash a Special Attack for major damage!
SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Special 1 - Cardshark – With a little sleight of hand, the Ragin’ Cajun sends a hidden ace flying. A 75% chance to Petrify for 4 seconds, reducing their Power and Health gains by 50%, plus an additional 5% for every Kinetic Energy charge. (For your benefit and mine: at max Kinetic Energy, this ability has a 125% chance to Petrify for 6 seconds, reducing Power and Health gains by 100%. Not bad, eh?)
Special 2 - Bayou Beatdown – Super-charged staff strikes from the back alleys of N’awlins. A 60% chance to inflict Concussion for 8 seconds, reducing their ability accuracy by 5%, plus an additional 7.5% for every Kinetic Energycharge. (At max Kinetic Energy, 110% chance to inflict Concussion for 12 seconds, reducing Ability Accuracy by 80%.)
Special 3 - Royal Flush – With quick movements, Gambit lets fly a perfect hand. Au Revoir. This attack has +10% Attack for every Kinetic Energy: charge on Gambit, then consume all Kinetic Energy Charges.The effects of Prowess buffs are doubled for this attack.
Three Special Attacks, three abilities. SP1 will help you block or reverse healing, SP2 will help you deal with abilities across the board, and SP3 will just give you big damage in one hit. Ideally, SP1 deals the least amount of damage, while SP3 deals the most, so you can pick which one you'd like to focus on, utility or damage.
Signature Ability - Ragin' Cajun: Gambit now inflicts Paralyze on his Parries instead of Stun, Stunning the opponent based on the Parry Mastery's rank, and decreasing Power and Health gain by 3.5% for every Kinetic Energy Charge.For every Prowess buff, Gambit deals an additional +6% Attack on his Basic Attacks in Energy Damage.
I really like Gambit's Paralyze on his current SP3, as a mix between Stun and Petrify, but I think it's a little too hard to get to be of much reliable use. This method of inflicting Paralyze will better allow Gambit to reverse Healing, as long as the player can keep up Kinetic Energy charges. Plus, some extra damage a la Red Hulk based on the damage-focused buff is nice to have, without being too OP in my opinion.
SYNERGIES: Mr. and Mrs. X:, with Rogue. Gambit: Kinetic Energy: Charges fall off 1 second slower. Rogue: Gain 25% Life Steal, Power Steal, and Buff Steal Potency.
I'll be honest, since I don't have an extensive knowledge of Gambit, I don't really know what to put here for his synergies. You can just fill in his current synergies here, I suppose. The one thing I do know about, though, is Gambit's recent marriage to Rogue, so I decided to represent that here with a synergy.
Final thoughts: I think, with this, Gambit becomes a champion that's able to either focus on Heal Reversal or on big Special Attack damage. We can have a heal reversal champ not in the Science Class, ha (IIRC, CAIW and Void are the only ones who can do it reliably, and I guess Torch as well). I fear I may have made Kinetic Energy charges drop off too slowly to properly mitigate Gambit's "other" style of gameplay - you should be more or less forced to stick to either utility or damage. And at the same time, perhaps Kinetic Energy drops off too quickly to gain any of the full effect. But, oh well. I think this certainly will make Gambit more desirable and interesting than before, perhaps a little bit too much more desirable and interesting. Let me know what you think, and until next time: Au revoir!
Looking to give some more love to another Champion that could have been great, but ended up never really being all that great. It's time to take a look at the King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt!
Rationale:Black Bolt is pretty one-dimensional in his build. While that's not altogether uncommon in first-generation Champions, he's definitely not the equal of Champions like Karnak (who is in pretty serious need of a rebuild) or his queen, Medusa, who is a pretty kick-ass Champion on both attack and defense. As King of the Inhumans, and with his canonical powers, he should be crushing Champions left and right. He's canonically on par with Thor, Hulk, and Thing, so he should hit about as hard as they do. He can channel and manipulate particles and electrons to absorb concussive force and redirect vast quantities of energy. He can rearrange matter, and has powerful telepathy capable of resisting those well-versed in mental manipulation. None of that is reflected in his power set, and that should be corrected.
BASE STATISTICS: Hit Points: 15660 Attack: 1148 Crit Rate: 598 Crit Damage: 703 Armor: 273 Block Proficiency: 3556
SIGNATURE ABILITY - MASTER BLOW: Black Bolt is capable of directing quantities of unknown particles to create controlled phenomena, enhancing his physical strength beyond his normal limits, channeling all the available energy he has into one arm for a single, massively powerful punch called the Master Blow!
Black Bolt gains 1 Electron counter for every light attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains 4 Electron counters for every medium attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains 9 Electron counters for every heavy attack he makes or takes.
Upon reaching 100 Electron counters, Black Bolt gains a Persistent Charge, and his Electron counters reset to zero. He can have up to 10 Persistent Charges.
Black Bolt starts the fight with a number of indefinite duration Passive Fury buffs equal to his Persistent Charge. Each Fury buff increases his Attack Rating by 10%.
If Black Bolt holds and charges a Heavy Attack for 1.5 seconds, he converts all of his Passive Fury buffs into a single Cruelty buff that increases his Critical Damage by 1500 per Fury Buff. His next successful hit is guaranteed to be a Critical hit. Once this hit lands, his Persistent Charge is reset to 0.
Black Bolt gains +50 Energy Resistance for each Electron counter he has.
ABILITIES: Telepathy (Passive): Supreme mental conditioning provides immunity to Reversed Controls. Poison Immunity (Passive): An enhanced immune system provides full immunity to the Poisons of the Battlerealm. Particle Manipulation: Well-timed blocks have a 100% chance to reduce all damage from Energy-based and Projectile Attacks to 0. Additionally, he can use the Parry Mastery against any basic attack, stunning opponents even if their attack is projectile based.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Particle Beam – Channeling unknown particles through the antenna on his forehead, Black Bolt targets his opponent with a focused beam.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
This attack consumes up to 50 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed grants this attack a 2% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 666.67 for 5.50 seconds.
Special 2 - Corkscrew – Surrounded by anti-gravitons, Black Bolt flies into his opponents, forcing them back with multiple strikes.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
This attack consumes up to 5 Persistent Charges. Each Persistent Charge consumed inflicts an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 833.35 for each Armor Up buff removed for 12.50 seconds.
Special 3 - Hypersonic Whisper – Black Bolt's power is so immense that a mere whisper is enough to send his enemies into submission.
If Black Bolt's Signature Ability is unlocked, this attack generates 1 Persistent Charge.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
This attack consumes up to 100 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed increases the amount of time the opponent is Stunned for by +0.02 seconds.
SYNERGIES: Cosmic Supremacy
With Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) or Ronan
All Cosmic Champions gain +30% Buff Duration.
Family
With Karnak or Medusa
Increases the Maximum Health of all Champions by 6%.
Friends
With Cyclops (New Xavier School), Cyclops (Blue Team), Spider-Man (Classic), Spider-Man (Symbiote), Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), or Spider-Man (Stealth Suit)
All Champions gain +130 Armor Rating.
Nemesis
With Kang
All Champions gain 5% attack.
Rivals
With Hulk or Hulk (Ragnarok)
All Champions gain +155 Critical Damage Rating.
Inhuman Royal Family
With Medusa
Medusa: Living Strands generates up to 6 Fury Buffs.
Black Bolt: Once per fight, when Master Blow has been used, Black Bolt has a 50% chance to instantly gain a Persistent Charge.
Inhuman Royal Family: +25% Attack at the start of the fight if Medusa, Black Bolt and Karnak are together in a team
Note: This explicitly alters the incoming Synergy from Medusa.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Infnity Foes
With Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, or Thanos
Black Bolt: Gain 1 additional Electron counter when successfully landing Medium and Heavy Attacks.
Cull Obsidian: The final strike of Special Attack 2 Stuns for an additional 2 seconds.
Corvus Glaive: New Mission - Downed Defenses: Knockout a Champion while you have no permanent Glaive charges. Once this mission is complete, your Heavy attacks only consume 1 Glaive charge instead of 3, though all hits are still Critical hits if you have any Glaive charges remaining.
Thanos: Armor Up and Fury buffs last for an additional +2.0 seconds.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
PREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):
Looking to give some more love to another Champion that could have been great, but ended up never really being all that great. It's time to take a look at the King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt!
Rationale:Black Bolt is pretty one-dimensional in his build. While that's not altogether uncommon in first-generation Champions, he's definitely not the equal of Champions like Karnak (who is in pretty serious need of a rebuild) or his queen, Medusa, who is a pretty kick-ass Champion on both attack and defense. As King of the Inhumans, and with his canonical powers, he should be crushing Champions left and right. He's canonically on par with Thor, Hulk, and Thing, so he should hit about as hard as they do. He can channel and manipulate particles and electrons to absorb concussive force and redirect vast quantities of energy. He can rearrange matter, and has powerful telepathy capable of resisting those well-versed in mental manipulation. None of that is reflected in his power set, and that should be corrected.
BASE STATISTICS: Hit Points: 15660 Attack: 1148 Crit Rate: 598 Crit Damage: 703 Armor: 273 Block Proficiency: 3556
SIGNATURE ABILITY - MASTER BLOW: Black Bolt is capable of directing quantities of unknown particles to create controlled phenomena, enhancing his physical strength beyond his normal limits, channeling all the available energy he has into one arm for a single, massively powerful punch called the Master Blow!
Black Bolt gains 1 Electron counter for every light attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains 4 Electron counters for every medium attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains 9 Electron counters for every heavy attack he makes or takes.
Upon reaching 100 Electron counters, Black Bolt gains a Persistent Charge, and his Electron counters reset to zero. He can have up to 10 Persistent Charges.
Black Bolt starts the fight with a number of indefinite duration Passive Fury buffs equal to his Persistent Charge. Each Fury buff increases his Attack Rating by 10%.
If Black Bolt holds and charges a Heavy Attack for 1.5 seconds, he converts all of his Passive Fury buffs into a single Cruelty buff that increases his Critical Damage by 1500 per Fury Buff. His next successful hit is guaranteed to be a Critical hit. Once this hit lands, his Persistent Charge is reset to 0.
Black Bolt gains +50 Energy Resistance for each Electron counter he has.
Okay, maybe I'm not seeing the numbers right, but this sig scares me a little bit. Of course, that crit boost is only for one hit, but that IS a 15k increase we're talking about here. Ghost, as far as I can tell if I'm reading her abilities right, can have 10 cruelties up at a time by converting 5 into passives and having 5 active buffs. This critical bonus she gets is about 14k (going off my maxed 5*s stats)
Again, I could just be getting intimidated by big numbers like that without actually seeing them in actions, I know I struggle with that concept in a lot of my redesigns. I love the concept of the "Master Blow", one massive punch to end the fight, though, I give that props. It's not a concept I've seen explored yet in the game.
ABILITIES: Telepathy (Passive): Supreme mental conditioning provides immunity to Reversed Controls. Poison Immunity (Passive): An enhanced immune system provides full immunity to the Poisons of the Battlerealm. Particle Manipulation: Well-timed blocks have a 100% chance to reduce all damage from Energy-based and Projectile Attacks to 0. Additionally, he can use the Parry Mastery against any basic attack, stunning opponents even if their attack is projectile based.
I'm a fan of the new immunity and the parry utility. Always love to see reverse controls immune for Delirium nodes, and the parry projectiles just keeps getting more useful with all the IMIWs, havoks and such around the game
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Particle Beam – Channeling unknown particles through the antenna on his forehead, Black Bolt targets his opponent with a focused beam.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
This attack consumes up to 50 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed grants this attack a 2% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 666.67 for 5.50 seconds.
Special 2 - Corkscrew – Surrounded by anti-gravitons, Black Bolt flies into his opponents, forcing them back with multiple strikes.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
This attack consumes up to 5 Persistent Charges. Each Persistent Charge consumed inflicts an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 833.35 for each Armor Up buff removed for 12.50 seconds.
I like the True Strike specials, and I especially like how, since they're tied into the sig, they reward skillful play. Though, if I may recommend, maybe the Sp2 could consume less charges? 3 max? I could not be seeing how quickly the charges build, but losing up to half of them in one special for a big armor break just sounds like you're gimping yourself a bit too much for your next fight, and unless it's a boss node or I'm just playing recklessly, I don't see myself wanting to lose half of my Master Blow damage bonuses. I like the concept of short-term reward, long term detriment, but I think it seems a bit too punishing. That's just me, though.
Special 3 - Hypersonic Whisper – Black Bolt's power is so immense that a mere whisper is enough to send his enemies into submission.
If Black Bolt's Signature Ability is unlocked, this attack generates 1 Persistent Charge.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
This attack consumes up to 100 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed increases the amount of time the opponent is Stunned for by +0.02 seconds.
I like the Sp3, especially because I like long stuns. But, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't 100 Electron counters impossible because they convert to PVs at 100 stacks? Or does the technically activate at the 101st stack?
Medusa: Living Strands generates up to 6 Fury Buffs.
Black Bolt: Once per fight, when Master Blow has been used, Black Bolt has a 50% chance to instantly gain a Persistent Charge.
Inhuman Royal Family: +25% Attack at the start of the fight if Medusa, Black Bolt and Karnak are together in a team
Note: This explicitly alters the incoming Synergy from Medusa.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Infnity Foes
With Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, or Thanos
Black Bolt: Gain 1 additional Electron counter when successfully landing Medium and Heavy Attacks.
Cull Obsidian: The final strike of Special Attack 2 Stuns for an additional 2 seconds.
Corvus Glaive: New Mission - Downed Defenses: Knockout a Champion while you have no permanent Glaive charges. Once this mission is complete, your Heavy attacks only consume 1 Glaive charge instead of 3, though all hits are still Critical hits if you have any Glaive charges remaining.
Thanos: Armor Up and Fury buffs last for an additional +2.0 seconds.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Good otherwise as far as synergies go, but I really don't think Corvus needs a 5th mission. He's already good enough as is haha
Overall a wonderful rework! Goes to show that you don't need to write an essay to make a decent champ anymore, props to you all around! A couple of things I would change, though
- I like the sig ability, but it's really a "make or break" for this version of Black Bolt. If it were me, I'd try to incorporate Master Blow into his base kit, and add the sig ability to enhance it. For example, I'd put the fury in the base kit, but keep the cruelty in the sig ability. Something simple like that
- His specials almost seem to not be worth using until you're really into the fight and built up. Personally, I like using my specials (which is a large reason why I never much loved Wolverine). I feel like that'd be mitigated, like I said earlier, by easing the costs special attacks have associated with them even by just a small bit. As it stands, synergy included, one fully charged special 2 eats up about 200 banked hits worth of PVs. I just don't feel like I'd want to get rid of that because of all the time it'd take to get it back. Though I do feel like that's a personal thing for me, because I want to use my specials often. If that was part of the point, then you can just take this point as a "me critique"
I've been meaning to hop back in on this, but I've just been forgetting to and putting it off. Critiquing this, though, has reminded me how much I love this little pocket of the community. Great stuff!
It's time to take a look at the King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt!
Really nice actually, Bodhizen! I was thinking some of what Whododo had said; particularly about consuming Persistent Charges (PCs) on his SP2.
I can think of an easy fix, though: If launched after landing a fourth light attack, the SP2 consumes PCs. If landed after a medium attack, it doesn't. Simple, and controllable!
I like the Master Blow effect; and given that it's only going to affect a single blow (which can't be the SP3) and take a lot of work, I don't think the big numbers are too excessive. There are a lot of defenders with the likes of Ice Armour or Protection Shielding who can deal with it, anyway.
I'd change the Sig; which you describe as generating Infinite duration passive Fury buffs, and remove the word passive:
1 - Cosmic champions generally make buffs, not Passives. 2 - This does give him a weakness vs Mystics which is entirely appropriate. You can throw in a respawn if nullified statement like Vulture's, if you want. 3 - Being Poison immune whilst producing permanent Fury buffs can occasionally come in handy... Caustic temper paths, anyone?
To address your concern about the "big numbers", Whododo872, whenever a 4-Star Corvus Glaive (as an example) completes a mission and gains a Persistent Charge, he gains a flat +3000 Critical Damage, and the missions cannot be removed. So... At 4 Missions, he gains +12,000 Critical Damage... On all 20-30 of his Glaive charges, and those refresh periodically throughout the fight (depending on how many are used and how long the fight lasts). So, this version of Black Bolt can gain up to +15,000 Critical Damage on a single blow once (or possibly a handful of times) per fight, while Corvus Glaive can gain up to +12,000 Critical Damage on 20-30 blows each fight. I felt that it was a very modest benefit by comparison.
Canonically, Black Bolt's use of his Master Blow taxes his ability to employ the energy to its full power for a short time. So... He's got to build back up to it mechanically in this rebuild. Canonically, he's also really, really resistant to Fatigue toxins, so I thought about adding that in as an immunity as well... But left it out so as not to overload him with "new goodies". Given the nature of his rebuild, though, I should probably add it in. It's a modest benefit that allows him to really take advantage of that Master Blow mechanic.
You're right, that Ice Armor and Protection Shielding (or Safeguard nodes) are going to reduce the effectiveness of the Master Blow. Upon refection, I think that because it's way less powerful than other Crit-building abilities, perhaps he should be able to ignore (or reduce the effectiveness) of such protective measures.
As for the Special 2 attack, you're both probably right that it should consume fewer Persistent Charges. The benefit to it consuming as many as it does is a counter to Champions like Colossus or Iron Man (Infinity War) that have abilities that depend upon how many Armor Up buffs they have active. Five Persistent Charges is a lot, but it would also strip off up to 5 Armor Up buffs. So... It's something to consider. I do like the idea of not consuming the Persistent Charges to inflict Armor Breaks just to control whether or not you're going to use them up. That's going in the next redesign.
I'll fix the wording on Special 3 (or in the signature ability). You're right that it can't consume 100 Electron counters as they'd have already converted into a Persistent charge.
With regard to the Passive Fury buffs, I like your solution of them respawning a la Vulture, so I'll include that in the next redesign.
Looking to give some more love to another Champion that could have been great, but ended up never really being all that great. It's time to take a look at the King of the Inhumans, Black Bolt!
Rationale:Black Bolt is pretty one-dimensional in his build. While that's not altogether uncommon in first-generation Champions, he's definitely not the equal of Champions like Karnak (who is in pretty serious need of a rebuild) or his queen, Medusa, who is a pretty kick-ass Champion on both attack and defense. As King of the Inhumans, and with his canonical powers, he should be crushing Champions left and right. He's canonically on par with Thor, Hulk, and Thing, so he should hit about as hard as they do. He can channel and manipulate particles and electrons to absorb concussive force and redirect vast quantities of energy. He can rearrange matter, and has powerful telepathy capable of resisting those well-versed in mental manipulation. None of that is reflected in his power set, and that should be corrected.
BASE STATISTICS: Hit Points: 15660 Attack: 1148 Crit Rate: 598 Crit Damage: 703 Armor: 273 Block Proficiency: 3556
SIGNATURE ABILITY - MASTER BLOW: Black Bolt is capable of directing quantities of unknown particles to create controlled phenomena, enhancing his physical strength beyond his normal limits and channeling all the available energy he has into one arm for a single, massively powerful punch called the Master Blow!
Black Bolt gains +1 Electron counter for every light attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains +4 Electron counters for every medium attack he makes or takes.
Black Bolt gains +9 Electron counters for every heavy attack he makes or takes.
Upon reaching 101 Electron counters, Black Bolt gains a Persistent Charge, and his Electron counters reset to zero. He can have up to 10 Persistent Charges.
Black Bolt starts the fight with a number of indefinite duration Fury buffs equal to his Persistent Charge. Each Fury buff increases his Attack Rating by 10%. If these Buffs are removed for any reason, they will refresh themselves after 4.50 seconds.
If Black Bolt holds and charges a Heavy Attack for 1.50 seconds, he converts all of his Fury buffs into a single Master Blow buff that increases his Critical Damage by 1500 per Fury Buff. His next successful hit is guaranteed to be a Critical hit. Once this hit lands, his Persistent Charge is reset to 0. Black Bolt's Critical Damage on his Master Blow cannot be reduced in any way.
ABILITIES: Telepathy (Passive): Supreme mental conditioning provides immunity to Reversed Controls. Inhuman Immunities (Passive): An enhanced immune system provides full immunity to Fatigue, and full immunity to the Poisons of the Battlerealm. Particle Manipulation: Black Bolt generates +1 Electron counter per second. He gains +50 Energy Resistance for each Electron counter he has. (Max: 101 Electron Counters) Well-Timed Blocks: Well-timed blocks have a 100% chance to reduce all damage from Energy-based and Projectile Attacks to 0. Additionally, he can use the Parry Mastery against any basic attack, stunning opponents even if their attack is projectile based.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Particle Beam – Channeling unknown particles through the antenna on his forehead, Black Bolt targets his opponent with a focused beam.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
This attack consumes up to 50 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed grants this attack a 2% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 666.67 for 5.50 seconds.
Special 2 - Corkscrew – Surrounded by anti-gravitons, Black Bolt flies into his opponents, forcing them back with multiple strikes.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
If this Special Attack is launched following the fourth Light attack of a Combo, this attack consumes up to 5 Persistent Charges. Each Persistent Charge consumed inflicts an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 833.35 for each Armor Up buff removed for 12.50 seconds.
Special 3 - Hypersonic Whisper – Black Bolt's power is so immense that a mere whisper is enough to send his enemies into submission.
If Black Bolt's Signature Ability is unlocked, this attack generates 1 Persistent Charge.
100% chance to Stun for 4.50 seconds.
This attack consumes up to 100 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed increases the amount of time the opponent is Stunned for by +0.02 seconds.
SYNERGIES: Cosmic Supremacy
With Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) or Ronan
All Cosmic Champions gain +30% Buff Duration.
Family
With Karnak or Medusa
Increases the Maximum Health of all Champions by 6%.
Friends
With Cyclops (New Xavier School), Cyclops (Blue Team), Spider-Man (Classic), Spider-Man (Symbiote), Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), or Spider-Man (Stealth Suit)
All Champions gain +130 Armor Rating.
Nemesis
With Kang
All Champions gain 5% attack.
Rivals
With Hulk or Hulk (Ragnarok)
All Champions gain +155 Critical Damage Rating.
Inhuman Royal Family
With Medusa
Medusa: Living Strands generates up to 6 Fury Buffs.
Black Bolt: Once per fight, when Master Blow has been used, Black Bolt has a 50% chance to instantly gain a Persistent Charge.
Inhuman Royal Family: +25% Attack at the start of the fight if Medusa, Black Bolt and Karnak are together in a team
Note: This explicitly alters the incoming Synergy from Medusa.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Infnity Foes
With Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, or Thanos
Black Bolt: Gain 1 additional Electron counter when successfully landing Medium and Heavy Attacks.
Cull Obsidian: The final strike of Special Attack 2 Stuns for an additional 2 seconds.
Corvus Glaive: New Mission - Downed Defenses: Knockout a Champion while you have no permanent Glaive charges. Once this mission is complete, your Heavy attacks only consume 1 Glaive charge instead of 3, though all hits are still Critical hits if you have any Glaive charges remaining.
Thanos: Armor Up and Fury buffs last for an additional +2.0 seconds.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Secret Warriors
With Namor
Black Bolt: Well-Timed Blocks grant +2 Electron counters.
Namor: Special Attacks have an additional +10% chance to inflict Bleed or Stun debuffs.
Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
PREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):
Some slight rearrangement of his abilities to round him out a bit and give him some more utility without requiring his Signature Ability for everything. If you have any constructive criticisms, let me know in a follow-up post! Thanks, and best wishes!
I concur, I think it looks very nice, not OP but definitely usable. I haven't heard of Black Bolt's "Master Blow" before, but I think it's a great idea, since it'll definitely take a while to charge back up to its full potential. Electron counters seem fairly balanced, since they're not too easy to get but not too difficult either. I can see some unique combos being thrown around with him, so that's nice.
My only two questions would be - are the first four lines of the sig meant to be in the sig, or should they instead be a part of the base kit (it seems a little pointless to lock additional, controllable methods of getting EC's behind awakening?), and could you potentially make a special attack a Master Blow (because that's gotta hurt, big-time)?
Fairly minor, but it could end up making a big difference in the end. Anyways, overall, it's great, as always! (Would be nice if someone reviewed my Gambit, ) But until next time, ...!
I concur, I think it looks very nice, not OP but definitely usable. I haven't heard of Black Bolt's "Master Blow" before, but I think it's a great idea, since it'll definitely take a while to charge back up to its full potential. Electron counters seem fairly balanced, since they're not too easy to get but not too difficult either. I can see some unique combos being thrown around with him, so that's nice.
My only two questions would be - are the first four lines of the sig meant to be in the sig, or should they instead be a part of the base kit (it seems a little pointless to lock additional, controllable methods of getting EC's behind awakening?), and could you potentially make a special attack a Master Blow (because that's gotta hurt, big-time)?
Fairly minor, but it could end up making a big difference in the end. Anyways, overall, it's great, as always! (Would be nice if someone reviewed my Gambit, ) But until next time, ...!
In my current revision, Black Bolt gains an Electron counter once per second. After 1:41 into the fight, he's got full Electron counters. With one of the Synergies listed, he can grab a few more, and they're mostly used for Energy Resistance and to give additional benefits to his Special Attacks. With his Signature Ability, he can gain them even faster, and they're going to go up and down a bit more often, so yes... Those lines were meant to be in the Signature Ability. The Signature Ability gives him use of his Special Attack extra benefits more often, plus the Persistent Charges that power his Master Blow.
Without his Signature Ability unlocked, he gains his full Electron counter allotment at 1:41 into the fight. With his Signature Ability unlocked, he can to full allotment with either 9-11 Heavy Attacks (depending upon how fast you land them), or by the end of his 8th or 9th Combo (depending on how fast he pulls off his Combos), but then they're going to reset as they convert to Persistent Charges. The Master Blow is going to be really useful in long fights, and it's still going to pack a pretty hefty wallop in short fights as well. It'll be less useful in Alliance Quest or Alliance War, where there won't likely be enough time to build up to full potential in a single fight, and then it'll take some ramping up to get it back again. Save your Master Blow for mini-bosses and the end Boss.
Could you make a Special Attack a Master Blow? Yes, absolutely. You set up the Master Blow, and the next successful hit uses the Ability. That could make his Special Attacks particularly devastating if you time it right. It also means that you could potentially chain weaker Master Blows by only using Special Attack 3, since Special Attack 3 generates one Persistent Charge, but successive SP3's are not going to hit much harder than Scarlet Witch could with her SP2. It's a very hard hit, but nothing ridiculous.
Thanks for the insights! I really appreciate working with you all to redesign Champions (and I hope that Kabam finds inspiration here to rebuild older, out of date Champions with greater frequency than they have so far).
(Would be nice if someone reviewed my Gambit, ) But until next time, ...!
Well, if you insist...
First thoughts: this looks fun (must revisit my Gambit rework some time! It was a long time ago, and I didn't put in half the effort you did)
I think maybe there's a spelling mistake in his Kinetic charges: "However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 0 seconds. This rate is increased by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is.". That would make it easier to maintain them at high Power Levels - at zero power he loses them instantly; and at full power they persist for six seconds. I think that wasn't what you intended?
Maybe your intention might be better expressed along the lines "However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 10 seconds. This time is reduced by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is."
Aside from that, I really like it. Versatile, interesting, fun...
I like the specials and their effects; although if the kinetic charges are affecting the duration, potency and ability accuracy you should make it clear.
The only thing I'd add would be to the Heavy attack - you can stack 10 kinetic charges, but only 5 Prowess. What happens to the left-over energy? Why not "Any excess kinetic charges are consumed as a burst of Physical damage equal to 25% of the damage inflicted by the Heavy attack" or something like that?
I suppose if you had ten, you could Heavy, Special, Heavy to regain Prowess; but I kind of think consuming them for extra damage immediately is more Gambit's style.
Oh, BTW: It's not really relevant, but let's not forget the original Heal Reversal champ, Guillotine. If you wanted anything to review...
Thanks, @Magrailothos , and you're right, I did make a typo, my bad. That's supposed to say every 9 seconds, my bad entirely. And I like the idea of excess kinetic charges providing extra burst damage, that's something I hadn't considered. Thank you! And I'll take a look at Guillotine, certainly.
First thought: Probably going to have to cap that 2% total HP damage from Bladethirst, the same way Loki's SP2 damage is capped. I love the idea of % based damage for Guilly, because Souls are quite difficult to get against higher HP opponents, but I think realistically that damage is always going to be capped. If you put it at a cap of maybe 100k damage, which, iirc, is what Loki's SP2 is capped at right now, that's still really powerful in LoL/AoL without being free kills. Second thought: couldn't you just make Spectre a passive effect, like Mysterio's Heal Block? That'd bypass shrugging off in the same way, except it wouldn't trigger willpower, so I suppose if you really want that extra damage... A few other loose thoughts: Stagger is nice, True Accuracy is meta-relevant and a good ability without being too OP, and I like the incorporation of a weakness against Soulless opponents. Doc Strange synergy makes Life Steal reliable, which is always nice, but I'd add a cooldown - maybe 5-8 seconds? My main concern would be how Guillotine's current synergies factor into this, since, if you have them all, they make her pretty good as is. I'm sure that said preexisting synergies can be tuned down a little a la Emma Frost-Colossus synergy, so it should be alright. Overall, though, I like it! It's not overly complicated, but it's certainly meta-relevant in more than one way. So there are my thoughts on your Guilly rework. Let me know if there are any other champions that haven't been done here that y'all'd be interested in seeing, and until next time!
Guillotine is a very simple-to-use (i.e. old) mystic champion; who used to have a unique niche role; thanks to her ability to reverse healing. There are now other champions who can do this better, for longer (so much so that Kabam have invented new nodes specifically to prevent healing reversal!); making her significantly less desirable. Aside from that one bit of utility, she does respectable critical and bleed damage, and not a lot else until she's Awakened; at which point she gains a bit of Life Steal for additional questing durability. She can't nullify buffs, she doesn't power control, and aside from her short-lived (ten seconds) heal-reversal, she doesn't have any actual utility at all. And yet... in the Story quest (Act 4), she's the Collectors 'Secret Agent'... In the monthly Event quest storylines, she seems genuinely important to, and respected by, Dr Strange... She's feared by the symbiotes like Venom... She's got an ancient, intelligent magic sword - shouldn't she have more to offer than this?
I think she should have more to offer; and as a Kabam original character, her abilities can be changed far more flexibly than one of Marvel's own champions (where there will be practical limitations on how they can be adapted for MCOC)... Yes, you could easily argue that there are other champs who need a re-work more; but here's a version of Guillotine who could provide a little more versatility to her questing team, and possibly justify the respect she gets in the story quests:
I agree with you that Guillotine is a Champion that used to have a niche role that is done better, longer, and more effectively by newer Champions. She's definitely in need of some love and attention.
Signature: Guillotine gains the ability to steal health from her opponents. The chance is 10% on basic attacks; rising to 20% on critical hits and special attacks. The amount of health she steals is 40% of the damage inflicted, per four soul shards she possesses. Minimum of 40% health steal regardless of her current soul count. Additionally, the duration of her Spectre effect is increased by up to 40% Not much change to her Sig, aside it now granting a short boost to the duration of her heal-reversing Spectre ability.
This is going to keep Guillotine in the fight a lot longer, and I like it. However, this ability reads a little clunky. She steals 40% of the damage inflicted per four soul shards (so 10% per soul shard), and she steals a minimum of 40%, regardless of how many soul shards she has. Was there a reason not to make this 10% per soul shard (minimum 40%)? If you're going to revamp the character, cleaning up the language or streamlining the ability is not out of order. Her Specter effect only triggers on SP2, if I'm reading this correctly, so the benefit is only granted to her heal-reversal. I'll get into why I bring this up later on.
You're right that it's not much of a change to her current Signature, and I think that you may be missing an opportunity here.
Soul Harvest: Guillotine's sword collects soul shards as it causes damage to her opponents. She starts the match with four soul shards.
For each 6% of their Maximum health taken in damage by her opponent, Guillotine gains a soul shard. This ability does not function against Robots or Dimensional Beings.
Although it can't absorb soul energy from the soulless, La Fleur De Mal takes power wherever it can: any bleed damage suffered by Guillotine also feeds soul shards to the sword, as if it were health lost by her opponent. Non-bleed damage does not have this effect.
However they are gained, soul shards expire after ten seconds. Changes here will have the effect of making Guillotine quite a lot less effective against Robots, but are intended to reflect the nature of her life-draining sword; which shouldn't work particularly well on the unliving. Whilst robots are a problem for her, Guillotine does become have some new tricks for taking on mystical opponents, as you'll see below...
So far, this doesn't particularly impress. She gets some soul shards if she's taking Bleed damage, which is nice. If she has Bleed immunity (such as that granted by a Node or Global buff), then this benefit is lost, and that's a shame.
Each soul shard grants Guillotine +60 Critical Damage Rating.
As long as she has at least one soul, La Fleur De Mal's thirst for blood grants Guillotine True Accuracy whilst her opponent is bleeding.
Mystical Armour: La Fleur De Mal protects it's wielder with a permanent Armour Up effect. Whilst active, this reduces the offensive ability accuracy of Cosmic and Mystic opponents by 30%. The Armour Up effect grants a basic +200 Armour, then each soul shard further increases her armour by +25, and her protection against offensive abilities by a flat +2%
Guillotine always had armour; but I've given it a Civil Warrior-type upgrade against offensive abilities, and changed it into an Armour Up effect rather than a passive (useful to have actual armour against certain opponents, like Havok. Less beneficial against Medusa or Dr Strange...)
How many soul shards can Guillotine go up to? The Critical Damage rating is less than she was getting before, but the fact that she loses a soul shard every 10 seconds means that she's constantly losing the best abilities that she gets, since most everything is dependent upon those soul shards. That's been the problem with Guillotine since her inception... The fact that she's constantly losing instead of building up to something (or hitting plateaus, as some abilities that convert to Persistent charges or permanent Passive buffs do).
True Accuracy is always nice, and the Armor Up is also cool... But the Ability Accuracy reduction against Cosmic and Mystic Champions means that she is less likely to gain soul shards if Champions like Drax or Gamora make her bleed. That actually makes the benefit described in the previous quote less useful, don't you think?
Now let's say that Guillotine manages to acquire 20 soul shards. That means that she's got +700 Armor (not too shabby), and +50% Ability Accuracy reduction against Cosmic and Mystic Opponents' offensive abilities. That sounds pretty nice, but it keeps on falling off, and she's got to inflict 6% of the opponent's maximum Health in damage to keep grabbing another soul shard (or take bleed damage herself). Against weak opponents, she won't be able to take advantage of those soul shards quickly enough (because they'll be dead), and against really strong opponents (such as bosses in Alliance Quest and Alliance War, or Labyrinth/Abyss of Legends opponents), she'll have to work much harder to gain those soul shards. That's part of what holds her back right now. Labyrinth Maestro has 3,386,998 hit points. 6% of that is 203,220 hit points. Is she going to cause that much damage in 10 seconds? She'll be losing soul shards faster than she can gain them and will go back and forth between 1 soul shard and none.
As a thought, I might recommend that she has to inflict a certain percentage of her own attack value to gain a soul shard (making her weaker toward opponents that are weaker than she is, but stronger toward opponents that are far more powerful than she is). You could set it at 750% of her Base Attack value. A 4-star Rank 5/50 Guillotine has a Base Attack value of 1216. Dealing 9120 damage to gain a soul shard isn't horrendous, and it gives her a chance to accumulate soul shards faster than they may fall off, since 9120 damage over 10 seconds isn't unreasonable at that point.
If that was the threshold, you could potentially gain (and lose) 371 soul shards over the course of a fight with Ex. Maestro, which is a lot, so you may want to play around with the numbers to find something that fits right.
All Attacks: Critical hits have a 60% chance to inflict bleed for 1108 damage over six seconds. Dimensional beings are not affected by bleed (even if they could be), but instead are afflicted with degeneration of equal intensity and duration. This mystical ability does not affect robots or other characters who are immune to bleed. Slightly more frequent bleeds, that are longer but less intense. This shouldn't mean much increase in her overall bleed damage; but will enable more up-time on her (new) True Accuracy ability. Her sword also now gains a new way to cause significant harm to the soulless dimensional beings; many of whom do not bleed anyway - La Fleur De Mal can't harvest their souls, but will kill them if it can!
Some language cleanup is needed here. "Critical Hits have a 60% chance to inflict 1108 Bleed damage over 6.0 seconds. Champions immune to Bleed debuffs instead Degenerate 1108 over 6.0 seconds. This Ability has no effect upon Robot Champions." Having it have no effect upon Bleed-immune Champions means that the Degeneration effect would never trigger. Dormammu (a dimensional being) is not a robot, but is Bleed immune. Colossus is also Bleed immune. I don't think that your intention was to exempt those types of Champions from Guillotine's Abilities. However, I do find it somewhat odd that mostly Tech Champions resist her Abilities, rather than Science Champions (who she has class disadvantage against). Perhaps that's something to consider?
Special Attacks Special-1: If it hits, this overhead blow consumes one soul shard to inflict Stagger for eight seconds, removing the next buff that would have activated. Against Cosmic champions, the duration is increased by 50% and all buffs that would have activated simultaneously are Staggered. Guillotine is currently the only Mystic champion with zero ability to nullify buffs. Surely that has to change, at least a little! Plus her SP1 doesn't have any additional effects at present; so she's taking a leaf out of Juggernaut's book with this ability, which seems to fit the skull-cracking nature of her SP1
Special-2: Consume two soul shards to place a Spectral curse on the opponent for ten seconds, which reverses the effects of any active regeneration effects. Spectre also reduces the ability accuracy of Tenacity, Masochism and other 'shrug-off' abilities by 100% whilst it is active. I've boosted Spectre's effects here, to take account of the defensive debuff-removal abilities that didn't exist when she was created. Spectre now can't be readily removed; and prevents removal of her bleeds at the same time. It remains a debuff though, so will still trigger effects like Willpower. And it only shuts down Masochism for ten seconds, so although this will be useful, it's not exactly game-breaking...
Special-3: Consume all soul shards to inflict additional Direct damage on the opponent equal to 2% of their Total health per soul charge. After this attack, which exhausts all her souls, Guillotine gains a Bladethirst buff which lasts for five seconds plus 0.5 seconds per soul shard consumed. During this time, La Fleur De Mal's hunger for souls grants Guillotine +500 Critical Rating, +50% Ability Accuracy on bleed effects, and each Critical hit has a 10% chance to drain 2% of the opponent's total health. The Bladethirst effect will end early if/when Guillotine has recovered a total of two soul shards. Throwing an SP3 remains a very effective option when you're ahead in a fight; but it was always much less effective if you were behind, or against an opponent with a large health pool (and therefore, low on souls). Now there is a seriously useful after-effect; as La Fleur De Mal tries to claw back some of its power. This means that an SP3 can be very useful if you're against a more powerful opponent with a high Health pool.
Here's where I think you may be missing some opportunities. Only Special 2 makes any use of the Specter, and Special 1 and 3 could easily trigger effects based upon how many soul shards Guillotine possesses at the time of activation.
Nullification is certainly appropriate to grant to Guillotine's power set, and she should definitely have it. An 8.0 second Stagger is pretty decent (12.0 against Cosmic Champions). But, that's the only thing that SP1 grants? I think that you miss an opportunity to grant her some greater utility here, since her Ability set is fairly limited as-is.
Special 2's ability to nix Tenacity, Masochism, and other "shrug off" abilities is an excellent addition to that Special's benefit. But, against Champions that do not heal... there is no benefit. Perhaps something else should be added in to prevent this benefit from being so niche?
The Bladethirst is very cool, but it ends early if she gains a couple of soul shards? It's probably going to end early frequently with that increase in Crit Rating combined with the health drain. I suspect this benefit is going to need a bit of revision. Just something to think about.
Synergies Doctor Strange - Blood and Magic): Unique synergy -
With training from the sorcerer supreme, Guillotine learns to dash back and hold block for 2 seconds, consuming a soul shard to activate a Life Steal buff. Thr buff lasts for seven seconds; although the duration is paused until the next successful hit. The Life Steal effect heals her for 40% of her Attack on attacks. She can activate this ability once per fight.
Dr Strange gains +50% Potency on all Life Steal and Power Steal effects*
*You may think Dr Strange doesn't have any Power Steal effects. This version does!
Venom - Symbiote Slayer (Unique Synergy, does not stack):
Guillotine gains a passive +30% Attack and +300 Critical Rating against Symbiotes
Venom's Klyntar buff refreshes 25% faster against Symbiotes and Spiderverse opponents.
The Synergies are fine, but overall, I think that your revision doesn't add as much as you think it does to her kit. I think that greater use of Spectral or Phantasmal abilities is warranted, that soul shards shouldn't be dependent upon an opponent's percentages (which seriously weakens her against far more powerful opponents), and that there should be some sort of "plateau" mechanic to allow Guillotine to build up some sort of a buffer against constant soul shard falloff.
I'm interested to see what you could do with another swing at this. I'm interested to take my own swing, but I don't want to steal your thunder here.
Would be cool if kabam updated all the old champions synergy, Especially popular ones like Hyperion, Scarlett witch, Hulk, Ultron, Etc. I Would like to see Doctor Doom and Scarlett Witch have a synergy called Our hidden secret. Dr.Doom and Ultron Synergy called rewritten Program. Comic book History; During Secret Wars Dr.Doom reprogrammed Ultron. Dr.Doom also had a love interest with Scarlett Witch. Thanks! Kabam for making Doctor Doom awesome!!!!
Here's a retooled Storm. (Based upon a Rank 5/50 4-Star Champion; Sig Level 99)
Rationale:Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm: Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES: Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%. Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.
Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted.
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.
70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.
100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:
Magical Potential: with Magik or Scarlet Witch: Storm: Opponents do not gain power whenever Storm lands a Special Attack. Magik: Limbo lasts an additional 1.0 seconds. Scarlet Witch: Special Attack 3 has a 100% chance to inflict a Heal Reversal effect upon the opponent for 6.0 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Enemies: with Magneto or Magneto (Marvel Now!): All Champions gain +155 Critical Rating.
Battlefield Commanders: with Cyclops (New Xavier School) or Cyclops (Blue Team): All Mutant Heroes gain +7% Attack. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Teammates: with Nightcrawler, Colossus, or Wolverine: All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.
Thermal Variance: with Human Torch, Sunspot, or Iceman: Storm: Whenever the opponent of Storm is immune to Coldsnap, they’re inflicted with a Slow Debuff for 4.0 seconds reducing the Ability Accuracy of Unstoppable and Evade effects by 100%. Human Torch: Increases his Power Gain by 5% from all sources while his opponent is under the effects of an Incinerate debuff. Sunspot: Reduces the potency of Damage Over Time debuffs placed upon him by 15%. Iceman: When Iceman's Ice Armor is shattered, it reforms 3.0 seconds faster. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Gods of Thunder: with Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), or Thor (Ragnarok): Storm, Thor, Thor (Jane Foster), and Thor (Ragnarok) gain +8% potency and duration on Shock and Stun debuffs they inflict upon their opponents. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Wakanda Forever: with Black Panther or Black Panther (Civil War): Storm: When below 30% health, Storm gains +1000 Physical Resistance. Black Panther: Each time a Bleed debuff fails to trigger, Black Panther gains a Fury buff, increasing his attack by 6% for 8.50 seconds. Black Panther (Civil War): Increases the amount of damage stored by 1% when in his Reflective state. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
PREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):
I may take a look at Guilly again. On the other hand, given some of her synergy buffs, maybe I don't need to!
I had a play with her in ROL the other day utilising the available synergies with Morningstar, Gamora, and Ronin; which help her harvest and maintain souls.
Using a 2/35 Awakened Guilly, she finishes WS in about five minutes and <300 hits; building souls relentlessly and finishing with an SP3 for >50% of his health. Which I reckon is pretty impressive for an 'old' champ at only 2/35.
Immunity: Incinerate, placing incineration on Sentry boosts his attacks
Molecular Reformation At the Start of a fight, Reality Warps persist with Sentry from the previous fight.
Reality Warp At the start of a fight and after every 20 Hits in a Combo, Sentry gains a Reality Warp. Reality Warps stack up to 6 max. Reality Warps are used as a multiplier for his abilities.
Steadfast Approach: 100% chance on entering this State.
SP1: 60% chance to incinerate, 40% chance to power burn
Vigilance Buff should also cause evade fail Passive:
Silver Surfer takes -100% damage from Coldsnap, Incinerate, and Shock Debuffs. Each stack of these Debuffs count as a Unique Buff for any of Silver Surfer's abilities. Each hit deals a Burst of 136.5 Energy Damage for each Unique Buff. This scales with modified attack.
Signature Ability: Nigh-Invulnerability Once per fight when the Mad Titan is struck by a blow that would knock him out, Thanos immediately becomes invulnerable for X seconds (1 second per buff active), and regenerates 5% Health per Buff. His buffs gain an increase of 25% potency.
Abilities Bionic Amplification (Passive): Thanos has a Bionic Amplification Buff that refreshes every 10 seconds. When this effect activates, a random Buff is gained from the list below. Maximum 10 Buffs each. Resist Physical: 20% increased Physical Resistance Resist Energy: 20% increased Energy Resistance Resist Critical: 20% increased Critical Resistance Cosmic Energy Manipulation (Passive): This Champion begins the fight with 15% Max Power. Whenever Thanos uses Special Attacks he immediately regains 15% Max Power Eternal Physiology (Passive): Eternal physiology grants immunity to all known poisons within the Battlerealm. Thanos Armor (Passive): The Mad Titan's Armor gives special attack resistance of up to 20% damage reduction.
When Struck by Basic Attacks: 15% chance to Armor Up, increasing Armor Rating by 20% for 5.5 seconds. All Attacks: 10% chance for Fury, increasing Attack by 30% for 6.5 seconds. Special Attacks: 100% chance for Heal Block lasting 9.5 seconds.
Special Attacks Special 1: Obliterate – Two rapid and devastating cosmic blasts from the Mad Titan soften up his opponent. Converts 50% of Physical Resistance buffs to Armor Break for 5 seconds. This Special Attack deals True Damage, ignoring all of the opponent's Armor. Special 2: Terminate – Rage and power combine to launch Thanos' target into the air with mighty concussive blasts. Consumes 50% of Energy Resistance Buffs to inflict Concussion, reducing the opponent’s Ability Accuracy by 25% per Debuff converted for 10 seconds. 50% chance of converting Critical Resistance to Cruelty This Special Attack deals True Damage, ignoring all of the opponent's Armor. Special 3: Exterminate – With a heavy heart, Thanos prepares to introduce his foe to his one true love. 100% Chance to Stun your opponent for 5 seconds
DPX is pretty much bottom of the barrel in the mutant class; and one of the worst pulls in the six-star crystal. If he wasn't part of Nick Fury's best synergy team he'd be totally useless. No real skills, no effects apart from a low-level bleed; and no actual special abilities till he's 70% dead...
I've revisited an old rework, aiming to give him just a few canon-friendly tricks without making him overpowered. No reskin required, although I'd want to give him full-time swords like Kabam did for Drax aeons ago. Still no regeneration though - at least in the comics, he didn't have regeneration during his X-Force phase...
That's right! Full-time swords! I always wondered how I made people bleed by punching them anyway, just because I had silver stars. And hey! What ya mean, bottom of the barrel? You ****ing ****! You think Cyclops is more effective than me?
Health 14,660
Attack 1139
Signature: When he drops below 30% health, (or if he starts a fight below 30% health) Deadpool has a 2000% chance to gain short-lived Power Gain, Fury and Cruelty passive effects. These grant up to +80% Attack, +160% Critical damage and +60% Power Gain over five seconds.
That's right - 2000%. Suck on that, Crossbones! And passive effects, so you Mystic ****s can suck it too! Ain't no-one stopping this badass from kicking ass!
Power Gain: When he drops below 60% health (or starts a fight below 60% health), Deadpool has a 1000% chance to gain a short-lived Power Gain passive, granting +30% Power Gain over four seconds.
Yeah! No more waiting till the end of the fight for this Power Gain!
If he is Awakened and starts the fight below 30% health, his Awakened ability supercedes this lesser Power Gain ability - they do not stack
Ego Power!
Deadpool gains Ego-fuelled bonuses any time he feels he's done something particularly impressive - when he lands two consecutive critical hits, when he counters an opponent's Heavy attack with his own; or when he uses Dexterity to Evade a Special Attack. Cool-down of 3 seconds. Bonuses are chosen at random from this list -
Gain 5% Power
Gain a stack of Cruelty (+150) lasting until the next critical hit. These can stack up to five.
Gain a Precision buff (+250) lasting five seconds. Does not stack.
Gain a Hit Me! buff lasting five seconds; which increases the chance of an opponent throwing a Special Attack by 50%. Does not stack.
Gain a Haemorrhage counter lasting until the next bleed is inflicted; which increases the duration of that bleed by 100%. Does not stack.
Gain a Tenacity counter granting a 60% chance to shrug off the next debuff suffered. Does not stack.
Passive: Deadpool's chaotic fighting style and thought processes make him difficult to fight, granting the following benefits:
Opponents suffer -250 Critical Rating and Block proficiency
He reduces his opponent's Autoblock and Evade chances by 50%.
When struck by a combo-ending basic attack, his opponents have a 30% chance to lose track of what they're doing, and reset their own combo meter to zero
External effects that measure Deadpool's own combo meter (such as Counter Tactics or Despair nodes) cannot count it above five
Sentinel gains analysis charges as though DPX were a Cosmic champion.
DPX is immune to Taskmaster's Exploit Weakness ability.
Chaotic? You mean awesome! Those guys just can't keep up with my amazing fighting skills
Katana Attacks: Deadpool's heavy attack, first medium and first two light attacks and his SP2 are katana attacks.
Katana attacks that hit the opponent have +180 critical rating, and have a 20% chance to inflict bleed for 490 damage over four seconds. Bleed potency and duration are both increased by 40% when a bleed is inflicted by critical hits.
Katanas. Oh yeah. That's how you make people bleed, baby! I wonder why that hottie Psylocke doesn't make people bleed with hers?
Special Attacks
When a Special Attack would trigger an Ego Power bonus, the usual Cool-down timer does not apply.
SP1 - 75% chance to inflict 25% Weakness for eight seconds. Female and robotic characters are immune to this effect. When an opponent is affected by this Weakness debuff, Deadpool triggers one of his Ego Power bonuses.
SP2 - Instead of the usual benefits of standard Katana strikes, this whirlwind attack gains +999 critical rating, and has a 99% chance to inflict bleed for 980 damage over four seconds. If he hits the opponent, Deadpool triggers an Ego Power bonus.
SP3 - Deadpool takes a sneaky shot at his opponent with a Carbonadium bullet, bypassing 75% of their Physical Resistance and inflicting a Passive Heal Block for ten seconds. 100% chance to inflict bleed for 1220 damage over five seconds. Deadpool triggers an Ego Power bonus in celebration.
Synergies
Get into the Pool (Deadpool, Goldpool, Venompool): Unique synergy:
Deadpool X-Force - Ego Power is more likely to trigger a Hit Me! buff (40% frequency) than other effects
Deadpool - If it hits, Deadpool's SP1 inflicts a Taunt debuff equivalent to Goldpool's on nonrobot male opponents.
Venompool - Any time Venompool successfully steals an opponents buff, they are also inflicted with a Taunt debuff equivalent to Goldpool's. Additionally, DPX loans Venompool some Carbonadium bullets, giving his SP3 the same passive Heal Block as DPX's.
Stealthy - Using the Dexterity mastery has a 25% chance to refresh Spider-Sense, if it is on cool-down.
Deadpool X-Force - Hit Me! buffs are 50% more potent at 'encouraging' Special Attacks
Love me like you do (Cable): Unique synergy
Cable - Perpetually annoyed by Deadpool, Cable automatically triggers his Regeneration at the start of each fight. If Awakened, he triggers a Power Gain as well.
Deadpool X-Force - Keen to impress Cable, Deadpool gains 30% Power over four seconds at the start of the fight
Comments
That regen isn’t useless, it’s just a little niche
Best wishes!
I don't see the point of the Armor Break, and it might be a little too much in a pretty long Sig as is, but it's a small effect and I'm sure it'll have its uses somewhere, so it should be fine. OK, I like this representation of Storm's psychic resistance - nothing too OP, but not insignificant either. And the resistance to the DOTs she inflicts is a nice touch too, although the way I see the Sig playing out, I don't think Storm will be at high levels of Power too much, so that might negate a little bit of the benefit of Coldsnap and Incinerate resistance there. This is the real crux of Storm's set, I think, and having this wide variety of debuffs to inflict a la BWCV will definitely give her nice utility. Up against a stacked Spidey? Use Arctic Wind Mode. Want more uptime on the Signature ability Power Gain/Burn loop? Lightning Mode is the way to go. And I now realize that the Armor Break, coupled with Acid Rain Mode, can take out Acid Wash Mysterio. Nice. I only have two problems, and they're relatively minor - 1) I don't see Mist and Fog Mode being too useful, but I like the idea of it. The relatively low RNG chance for a nice, if not entirely significant, damage boost means this one is probably going to get passed over a lot. And 2) would it always cycle in the same order? If so, that means you're going to have to block and hold at the beginning of each fight just to get out of the least useful mode, and you might be taking a lot of block damage that way. An auto-change mechanic might be nice, but at the same time that might hurt more than it helps. Honestly, I see the best way to use this as being enter fight ----> use a special ---> stun ----> change to your desired mode, and then run it from there. Yo, Archangel called. He wants his mechanics back.
In all seriousness, I like the idea of combining debuffs. These in theory should be relatively easy to keep up, since you're constantly inflicting Shock on Special Attacks, and don't do as much damage as AA's Neurotoxins, so not so bad. I'd like to see more done with them, however. Perhaps you could go all the way and tie the Signature Ability to Tempest charges instead, since they last longer, and that would give them an extra layer of usability for the heal reduction/evade mitigation that you're losing by consuming Poison/Coldsnap. I'd say this is similar to the Armor Break from the sig - small, nice to have, but it's a little random. I see these as being definitely nice bonuses that you'll like to have, but I wouldn't mind not having them, especially since they add to an already pretty complex kit. I see where they're coming from, though, so good job on representing the character well, both here and just in general. The Specials themselves are pretty simple. Not too complex here. I worry as to how the mass DOT flood from the SP3 will work in tandem with Tempest charges and the Signature Ability, though. If it triggers all six possible debuffs, would the two shocks combine to make two Tempest charges? If so, which two debuffs would be consumed? The two poisons, the two coldsnaps, or one of each (that would be weird)? And again, the Signature Ability Power Gain seems like it'd be pretty small and difficult to keep up since these have such short durations. I still like the idea of tying them to Tempest charges, which last longer and thus make the Power Gain loop easier to maintain. These synergies are nice to have. Nothing necessary, and I see the other champions in the synergy gaining more than storm, to be honest (especially Black Panther), but overall, these are really well balanced and solid synergies.
As for the entire kit, it certainly makes Storm... not boring. The use of different debuffs sounds a little weird, but the justification with different kinds of weather makes it work. (Acid rain for Poison - inspired idea!) If this were to actually happen, I'd see Storm becoming more useful for sure, and definitely way more fun to play. It'd be tough to juggle the rotations, but you can do so much with this kit that it should be worth it. For the last time, my main problem would be the signature ability power gain, as I think it's a little too much work for not enough gain, but tying it to Tempest would fix problems with both abilities. Overall, it's certainly no different from the rest of your kits, @Bodhizen - pure excellence!
Thank you for reading, and, if I'm being honest, let me know which kits I should review or take on myself. I'm itching to do something more for this community.
Live long and prosper,
HeroBoltsy
Thank you kindly for the review of Storm! Let me answer some of your questions...
The Power Burn+Power Gain mechanic is an interesting one. I definitely like the idea of having Storm gaining power, but only when the opponent loses power via Power Burn - it's a new layer to abilities we've seen before, and on paper, it seems like fun to play. However, I must say I'm skeptical as to the overall effectiveness of the ability. I don't know if I'm reading into this right, but it seems to me that you'll want to keep up at least one of the Shocks/Poisons/Coldsnaps in order to continually burn power with specials, and then several more of each to gain significant amounts of power. I'd think the most effective route to go would be by using Arctic Wind mode in order to start the loop, and then play aggressively in order to keep Shocks up so as to continually spam specials and keep the loop going. The bit that worries me (although I'm not sure if this is just my nature to play defensively or not) is that the Shocks caused on the special attacks will expire one second before the power gain has fully run its course, so I can see it being a little tricky to keep up, since you won't be gaining the full effect before your Shocks expire.
I don't see the point of the Armor Break, and it might be a little too much in a pretty long Sig as is, but it's a small effect and I'm sure it'll have its uses somewhere, so it should be fine.
So, the Signature Ability is meant to ensure that you can deal with a variety of opponents and keep cycling power into Storm (as her "storm" rages on). You can keep throwing other debuffs down to keep burning power with the Special Attacks, but take (as an example) Special 2... It currently deals tons of damage and is the best thing about the existing Storm champion. That's going to net you quite a bit of power in your Power Meter... Perhaps even enough to reliably throw down Special attacks with decent frequency when you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter. If you've got 6 debuffs on your opponent, that's an additional 18% of your Power Meter. I didn't feel that was too shabby. You can still be throwing more Shocks (or other debuffs) on while the Power Gain is active, but it won't do anything, since it only triggers once you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter.
The Armor Break disables some of the nonsense that you may have to deal with when your opponent has Armor up, such as Iceman's Ice Armor, Emma Frost's Diamond Form, or Killmonger's Reverberation. She needed something to effectively deal with such shenanigans.
OK, I like this representation of Storm's psychic resistance - nothing too OP, but not insignificant either. And the resistance to the DOTs she inflicts is a nice touch too, although the way I see the Sig playing out, I don't think Storm will be at high levels of Power too much, so that might negate a little bit of the benefit of Coldsnap and Incinerate resistance there.
The resistance is explicitly to psychically generated effects, like Emma Frost's specials, or Psylocke's psychic knife. Reducing the damage from Shock effects by 90% allows her to potentially heal off of Shock effects like Omega Red can potentially heal off of Bleed effects (with the Willpower mastery). But, it's reflective of the powers that Storm has in canon. As for the resistance being tied to her Power Meter, she's got that now with Shock resistance. It gives you a reason to either play her offensively, or to hold on to her Power to negate some of her opponent's best benefits.
This is the real crux of Storm's set, I think, and having this wide variety of debuffs to inflict a la BWCV will definitely give her nice utility. Up against a stacked Spidey? Use Arctic Wind Mode. Want more uptime on the Signature ability Power Gain/Burn loop? Lightning Mode is the way to go. And I now realize that the Armor Break, coupled with Acid Rain Mode, can take out Acid Wash Mysterio. Nice. I only have two problems, and they're relatively minor - 1) I don't see Mist and Fog Mode being too useful, but I like the idea of it. The relatively low RNG chance for a nice, if not entirely significant, damage boost means this one is probably going to get passed over a lot. And 2) would it always cycle in the same order? If so, that means you're going to have to block and hold at the beginning of each fight just to get out of the least useful mode, and you might be taking a lot of block damage that way. An auto-change mechanic might be nice, but at the same time that might hurt more than it helps. Honestly, I see the best way to use this as being enter fight ----> use a special ---> stun ----> change to your desired mode, and then run it from there.
The different modes are meant to represent different powers that Storm can summon with her mutant abilities. I wanted to have a way to represent that in a way that could be useful as a champion in the contest. Sure, she's going to start in Fog & Mist mode, which is a defensive mode (which guarantees that she's going to be more useful on Alliance War defense), and every time an attack misses, she gets a Fury buff. That means that on average, one hit in a combo will miss, and she'll counter with a harder strike. I don't find that mode to be without good use on defense or offense. As for the other modes, yeah they're going to cycle in the same order, so you can predict what's coming up next in order to get into the mode you want. The block is no longer than the amount of time Nebula has to hold a block to gain a charge, so you can change modes pretty quickly and easily. Parry-stun, then change modes. Pretty simple.
Yo, Archangel called. He wants his mechanics back.
In all seriousness, I like the idea of combining debuffs. These in theory should be relatively easy to keep up, since you're constantly inflicting Shock on Special Attacks, and don't do as much damage as AA's Neurotoxins, so not so bad. I'd like to see more done with them, however. Perhaps you could go all the way and tie the Signature Ability to Tempest charges instead, since they last longer, and that would give them an extra layer of usability for the heal reduction/evade mitigation that you're losing by consuming Poison/Coldsnap.
I did purposefully use Archangel's mechanics here, but I felt that an über-strong "storm" power was perfectly appropriate to the character. The Tempest can really mess an opponent up, and since she's got a good kit of other damage effects, she didn't need something as strong as Archangel's Neurotoxin ability. The point wasn't to take that mechanic and outdo it. Yes, she's going to be consuming some of her damage dealing abilities to gain heal reduction & evasion mitigation, but it's no more or less powerful than Archangel's ability here.
I'd say this is similar to the Armor Break from the sig - small, nice to have, but it's a little random. I see these as being definitely nice bonuses that you'll like to have, but I wouldn't mind not having them, especially since they add to an already pretty complex kit. I see where they're coming from, though, so good job on representing the character well, both here and just in general.
I really wanted to properly represent Storm's powers, so thank you. As for the benefits you get from Heavy attacks and Well-Timed Blocks, they should be small, but useful. The Well-Timed Blocks, in this case, can be pretty powerful. You can Parry/Stun and build up to +50% Critical Chance and Critical Damage. Now throw down a Special Attack... That can gain you more Power in your Power Meter, plus debuff damage, plus additional damage from Power Burn. That means that Storm can throw down a pretty powerful wallop! Those Heavy Attacks, though, are really powerful if you think about it. They're going to force your opponent back, which means that they can't retaliate as fast because they have to get back over to you... Even if they successfully resisted your Heavy.
The Specials themselves are pretty simple. Not too complex here. I worry as to how the mass DOT flood from the SP3 will work in tandem with Tempest charges and the Signature Ability, though. If it triggers all six possible debuffs, would the two shocks combine to make two Tempest charges? If so, which two debuffs would be consumed? The two poisons, the two coldsnaps, or one of each (that would be weird)? And again, the Signature Ability Power Gain seems like it'd be pretty small and difficult to keep up since these have such short durations. I still like the idea of tying them to Tempest charges, which last longer and thus make the Power Gain loop easier to maintain.
With everything else in the kit, the Specials didn't need to be complicated. So... If you have some active Shock charges, say from being in Lightning Mode, you can get up to 4 Tempest charges, doing 10,316.8 damage over 15 seconds. I would imagine that would be quite welcome, in addition to the damage from Special 3, plus up to 2 more Shock debuffs dealing an additional 2149.4 damage over 6 seconds. So, just on the extra damage from Special 3 (not counting the damage that Special 3 does on its own), you're doing 12,466.2 more damage over the course of that 15 seconds... Before potential Critical Damage from Well-Timed Blocks kicks in, and before the Power Burn from the Special Attack against an opponent who probably has their Armor reduced. It forms a combination of effects that can really tear your opponent apart.
The Coldsnap and Poison debuffs would combine randomly by design, so you're going to chance what you gain or lose from triggering debuffs with Tempest (Passive) Ability. It makes her less predictable, but requires some skill during play in terms of what kind of Mode you want to be in, and for how long.
As for the Power Gain loop... It only triggers if you reduce your opponent to 0 Power Meter, so it's going to be a nice addition, not something you're going to be able to loop around all the time anyway... Nor should it be. Storm is meant to have some power control utility, but not to be a primary power control Champion.
These synergies are nice to have. Nothing necessary, and I see the other champions in the synergy gaining more than storm, to be honest (especially Black Panther), but overall, these are really well balanced and solid synergies.
I try to make my Synergies well-balanced! Thank you!
As for the entire kit, it certainly makes Storm... not boring. The use of different debuffs sounds a little weird, but the justification with different kinds of weather makes it work. (Acid rain for Poison - inspired idea!) If this were to actually happen, I'd see Storm becoming more useful for sure, and definitely way more fun to play. It'd be tough to juggle the rotations, but you can do so much with this kit that it should be worth it. For the last time, my main problem would be the signature ability power gain, as I think it's a little too much work for not enough gain, but tying it to Tempest would fix problems with both abilities. Overall, it's certainly no different from the rest of your kits, @Bodhizen - pure excellence!
Thank you very much for your kind words! I don't want these Champions to be "powerful, but boring", and I don't think they deserve to be "weak and not fun to play" either.
Best wishes!
I also believe someone else said this and I've said this before about psychic resistances that affect susceptibility to Reversed Controls by Emma:
1. They either have to be on from the start; 2. have a chance to turn on or fail to turn on from the start; 3. be turned on at a fixed obvious point and stay on; or 4. be on for a while then turn off for the remainder of the match; otherwise it gets too hard for a player to keep track of and react to in time if it's going to affect someone this time and not another. People's reflexes won't keep up to know when "Reverse Fails" in the space of time they'd be gearing up to swipe forward to go backward.
What may be a good alternative to put in this time, since Storm's electric, faraday cage-like abilities is canonically resistant (but not immune) to psychic attack, is grant her one of the following
1. Storm takes X% less damage from psychic attacks than other champions always
2. Storm takes +X% less damage from psychic attacks each time she successfully evades or parries one, until they deal 0 damage even if struck directly
3. Storm auto-evades the first 3 (or whatever suitable number of) psychic attacks directed at her, or
4. "Storm's increased psychic resistance and mental training resists psychic attacks making them 75% less effective the first time she receives a direct hit from one. This resistance is worn down by 25% until she is susceptible to the full damage. Each Special Attack Storm lands on a psychic increases her resistance by 25% until she is up to 75% resistant to the effects again." - this would keep her effects reversed but honor her resistance by taking less damage if she fails to dodge (in the case of Emma Frost), lose less power and health (in the case of Psylocke), and even reverse less healing and take less damage (in the case of MODOK) or less degeneration and shorter concussions from Mr. Sinister.
Now in general I'm curious about the ideation of some of these redesigns when we do them. I keep my changes relatively modest because I think in terms of what is more likely to be taken seriously if a Game Engineer was actually going to take our suggestions to heart, but others have seemingly made some of these champs god tier in their damage output or their utility. This applies a bit to this Storm design because her entire variety of different ways of dealing extra damage are all in her base abilities.
Here's a modest example using Acid Rain and Mist:
1. When Storm strikes an opponent 100% of the base attack rating is dealt directly plus up to an additional 150% instantly as Shock Damage depending on how full the opponent's power meter is (equivalent of +50% per Power Bar)
2. If Storm's opponent is Shock Immune, the additional damage fails and Storm instead flash floods the area with Acid Rain, inflicting Poison dealing +75% of the original attacks damage over 3 seconds (intentionally less potent than her max since lightning would be her primary weapon)
3. Each time Storm evades an attack using dexterity she affects the barometric pressure of the battle arena (indicated by a meter) when pressure is high enough, she coats the area in Fog that causes the opponents to have a 50% chance to miss any attack, and causes auto-evasion abilities in her opponent to fail. If Storm evades (auto or dex) a basic attack in fog she gains a Precision buff for 6 seconds; if she evades a Special Attack she gains Prowess.
4. Many other weather related effects are activated when paired with Elemental or certain Mystical champs via Synergies (I like your ones with Magik or Scarlet Witch, where it would be appropriate to control Power Gain via her lightning - not as a base ability, she's not an inherent Control champ, but it would be great utility to hit a near full power opponent for the extra shock damage and not push them to Sp3 counter); Coldsnap with Iceman or Loki; % chance to trigger Acid Rain with every special attack with Namor; % chance to Armor Break with any Thor; % chance to cause Heat Stroke with Human Torch, Sunspot or Mephisto (dealing more intense heat to Shock immune champs)
Again, I like what you did, I just think having everything in base ability would be too much for developers to ever consider giving her when they probably think she's pretty powerful (in older design terms) to begin with that they just want to spruce her up with a few extra base effects that are fitting but don't give her dominance over every other champ.
- Power Burn
- Stun
- Shock
- Coldsnap
- Poison
- Novel Passive DoT effects (Tempest charges)
- Direct physical damage on Heavies
- Potent 'almost better than immunities' resistances to Shock, Coldsnap, and Incinerate'
- Resistance to Taunt
- Miss (evade-type) mechanic (20%!)
- Armour Break
- Cruelty
- Precision
Clearly you have a great fondness for Storm and want to develop an ability for every skill she's shown in comics. But consider how she compares (in comics) with her peers: however much we like and respect Storm, is she really better combat-trained than Wolverine? Daredevil? Captain America?It's she really more iron-willed than Magneto? Dr Doom? Red Skull?
And whilst she might cope in the desert sun, is she actually more fire-resistant than Hulk? Thing? Juggernaut?
There are some fun ideas, but taken as a whole, it just seems way, way too much. I really like the idea of combat modes (acid rain! It's absurd, but I love it!); and developing the use of wind, fog, Shock and so on. Maybe even a watered-down Poison ability and a 3% Miss* mechanic, but I really can't get behind the Power Burn, Armour Break, and Incinerate resistance.
*You might not think 20% Miss is all that high; but with that chance on every basic attack, then statistically, she would avoid an attack in 68% of five-hit combos! Although I guess any five-hit combo when an attack doesn't Miss will inevitably switch her mode, given that she only has to be forced to hold block for 0.9 seconds...
For me, this one's just too much in it's current form @Bodhizen, though I'd love to see one or two of the suggestions incorporated by the team. Sorry!
I agree no champ should have only one mechanic anymore, and for that I love the alternative to Lightning that presents itself in the form of Acid Rain. All that he needed was a suitable mechanism to switch when needed.
Since Kabam favors having things set in threes, a switch to the 3rd ability "Mist" that moves away from damage variety/capability to evasion utility should be the max to her Base Kit. Everything else should come, at most, from Synergies if at all.
Synergies are appropriate to include that make historical references to other forms Storm has had across the multiverse and they limit her having all of the abilities listed at once and being so overpowered
The mental resistance, although canon, isn't as high and consistent as I think would merit being a must have for Storm, but I do think reduced damage for a few hits would cover that, while still getting reversed. If anything, I'm in favor of having Reversed Controls shielded from all teammates if 2 psychics are on a roster (e.g. Phoenix and Psylocke with Storm, same as Phoenix and Psylocke with Hawkeye) or at least to X-characters, signifying how they tended to protect each other from psychics (any 2 of Psylocke, Phoenix, Cable or Emma Frost protecting themselves and the 3rd through 5th X teammates) and a copy version for villains based on Mr. Sinister and MODOK extending it to villains or the Illuminati.
A fair trade off to that would be to present the choice to us Summoners of, similar to Blade, leeching her own stored power to regenerate health. The difference is hers would be proportionately weaker or slightly better than Blade's rate of healing (for same Tier, Rank, Level and Sig) based on how high the opponent's Power Meter is.
The synergy could be called "Forged by Vampirism" or whatever else is appropriate since she did not get hers from Blade and similarly they did not get their vampirism from the same vampire.
Similar applications can be made for Emma, Cyclops (NXS) and Colossus (Classic) in a Phoenix 5 synergy to introduce minor regen or at least Resurrection mechanics like Phoenix. And also via a Synergy (with Loki and/or Emma) maybe Iceman can Health Steal up to 5% health from an opponent suffering from Coldsnap or Frostbite while his armor is reforming (setting up very limited conditions for an already strong character).
Archangel and Cyclops (BT) could probably get some healing if/when Apocalypse is introduced.
Heavy attacks:
Currently, she inflicts a shock debuff lasting 6 seconds. Increase this to 30 seconds but don’t increase the potency.
When attacking shocked opponents:
When nebula attacks a shocked opponent, she gains an shock charge. Additionally, nebula steals 5% of a bar of power against shocked opponents.
Blocking:
If the opponent is shocked, nebula gains 1000 (or about 35%) block proficiency.
These changes are small but effective. The ideal rotation is parry-heavy at the start to activate the long shock, attack into the opponent until you have 20 shock charges, parry and launch sp2. Rinse and repeat.
Nebula can now build shock charges while attacking. The ability to steal power gives her even more power control and allows her to build to sp2 faster. She currently has low block proficiency but this change would make up for that, although you wouldn’t need to hold block as much. Nebula would require a higher skill level (need to be able to intercept and not rely on parry) in order to access her high damage.
I think these changes are balanced and aren’t too major to put into game. Tell me what you think
Thank you all for your input. You're right... I did go overboard on Storm and she needs to be dialed down. I'm going to repost a more moderate version of her that I hope will be more in keeping with the power levels of current Champions.
Best wishes!
Rationale: Storm has almost no utility, has very little defensive capabilities, and while her Special Attack 2 can give a pretty good jolt, she's just not that much fun to play. With the addition of cold-based debuffs in the game, Storm should have been granted access to those powers. She's lackluster, and no Champion in the game deserves to be lackluster, even if they don't all deserve to be God-tier Champions. Canonically, Storm has power over the natural elements, telepathic resistance, magical potential, divine potential, and tactical training. At least some of those elements should be incorporated into her Contest of Champions character.
Signature Ability - Goddess of the Storm:
Becoming an avatar of the elements, Storm's power rises to new heights!
- Whenever Storm's opponent has 1 or more Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuffs active on them and Storm activates a Special Attack, the attack inflicts Power Burn, converting up to 33% of the opponent's Max power into direct damage. If this attacks reduces the enemy to zero Power Meter, Storm gains a Power Gain buff, gaining 3% of her total Power Meter per active Shock, Poison, or Coldsnap debuff on her opponent over 7.0 seconds. If Storm is knocked down while gaining Power this way, this effect ends immediately.
ABILITIES:Elemental Resistance (Passive): Storm reduces the damage of Shocks by 90%. While suffering from a Shock Debuff, her Special Damage is increased by 30%.
Atmokinesis (Passive): Storm uses her mutant powers to manipulate the weather. By dashing back and holding block for 0.9 seconds, Storm is able to change modes:
- Lightning Mode: Whenever Storm ends a Combo with a light attack, that attack has a 60% chance to inflict a Shock debuff that deals 1824 Energy damage over 4.0 seconds. Additionally, all Special Attacks have a +10% chance to Shock Storm's opponent.
- Acid Rain Mode: On a successful hit, all of Storm's basic attacks have a 9% chance of inflicting a Poison debuff dealing 483.6 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
- Arctic Wind Mode: Storm's special attacks gain a +65% chance to inflict a Coldsnap debuff, dealing 4030 Energy damage over 18.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
Tempest (Passive): Each time Storm triggers a Shock effect on an opponent with an active Coldsnap or Poison effect that she caused, they are combined, converting into a Tempest charge, lasting 15.0 seconds.- Tempest charges do 2579.2 damage over their duration.
- Tempest charges are a Passive effect, and therefore do not count as either a debuff, a Shock, a Poison, or a Coldsnap.
Heavy Attacks: Using a sharp gust of wind, Storm's heavy attacks push her opponent back, even if the heavy attack is resisted.SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Special 1 - Lightning Strike – Storm channels ambient electromagnetic energy into a single strike.
- 60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
- 70% chance to inflict up to 3 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 Energy damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Gale – A gust of frigid wind and a blast of lightning send the opponent flying.- 70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
- 80% chance to inflict up to 4 Shock debuffs upon your opponent, each dealing 1074.7 direct damage over 6.0 seconds.
Special 2 - Tempest – Storm channels the wrath of nature into a relentless tempest of freezing wind, acid rain, and lightning that assaults her opponent.- 100% chance to Stun for 4.5 seconds.
- 95% chance to inflict up to 2 Shock debuffs, 2 Poison debuffs, and 2 Coldsnap debuffs upon her opponent, each dealing 1074.7 damage over 6.0 seconds. Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.
SYNERGIES:ABILITIES:
Ante Up: Gambit starts the fight with two Kinetic Energy charges. Whenever he lands a Critical Hit, he gains one Kinetic Energy charge. Max: 10.
Kinetic Energy Charges: Gambit's ability accuracy is increased by a flat 5%, and the duration of his inflicted debuffs is increased by a flat 5%, for every Kinetic Energy charge he has.
This does not affect any Masteries, or any effects granted from Masteries. However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 0 seconds. This rate is increased by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is.
This is Gambit's main mechanic - Kinetic Energy Charges. These will improve your ability accuracy on specials, allowing you to guarantee the effects of Paralyze or Concussion (I'll come back to that) and extend them for longer durations. However, they don't affect Parry, and they are difficult to keep up at higher Power levels. That'll be important later on.
Passive: If Gambit has five or less Kinetic Energy charges, his fourth light attack is Guaranteed to Crit.
This will be your main source of Kinetic Energy charges, and will allow you to maintain a steady supply of Kinetic Energy Charges. However, if you want to get the full benefit of the Kinetic Energy Charges, you'll have to get a little lucky.
Roll the Dice: Whenever Gambit uses a Heavy Attack, he converts all Kinetic Energy charges to Prowess buffs, which last indefinitely and provide +20% Special Attack Damage. Max Stacks: 5
Special Attacks:At the end of every Special Attack, consume all Prowess buffs.
Remember how Kinetic Energy charges fall off faster and are harder to maintain at high Power levels? Well, Gambit's Prowess buffs don't! Therefore, you can hold onto these as long as you want as your Power goes up to boost your Special Attack, while sacrificing some reliability in your abilities, until you're ready to unleash a Special Attack for major damage!
SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Special 1 - Cardshark – With a little sleight of hand, the Ragin’ Cajun sends a hidden ace flying.
A 75% chance to Petrify for 4 seconds, reducing their Power and Health gains by 50%, plus an additional 5% for every Kinetic Energy charge. (For your benefit and mine: at max Kinetic Energy, this ability has a 125% chance to Petrify for 6 seconds, reducing Power and Health gains by 100%. Not bad, eh?)
Special 2 - Bayou Beatdown – Super-charged staff strikes from the back alleys of N’awlins.
A 60% chance to inflict Concussion for 8 seconds, reducing their ability accuracy by 5%, plus an additional 7.5% for every Kinetic Energycharge. (At max Kinetic Energy, 110% chance to inflict Concussion for 12 seconds, reducing Ability Accuracy by 80%.)
Special 3 - Royal Flush – With quick movements, Gambit lets fly a perfect hand. Au Revoir.
This attack has +10% Attack for every Kinetic Energy: charge on Gambit, then consume all Kinetic Energy Charges.The effects of Prowess buffs are doubled for this attack.
Three Special Attacks, three abilities. SP1 will help you block or reverse healing, SP2 will help you deal with abilities across the board, and SP3 will just give you big damage in one hit. Ideally, SP1 deals the least amount of damage, while SP3 deals the most, so you can pick which one you'd like to focus on, utility or damage.
Signature Ability - Ragin' Cajun:
Gambit now inflicts Paralyze on his Parries instead of Stun, Stunning the opponent based on the Parry Mastery's rank, and decreasing Power and Health gain by 3.5% for every Kinetic Energy Charge.For every Prowess buff, Gambit deals an additional +6% Attack on his Basic Attacks in Energy Damage.
I really like Gambit's Paralyze on his current SP3, as a mix between Stun and Petrify, but I think it's a little too hard to get to be of much reliable use. This method of inflicting Paralyze will better allow Gambit to reverse Healing, as long as the player can keep up Kinetic Energy charges. Plus, some extra damage a la Red Hulk based on the damage-focused buff is nice to have, without being too OP in my opinion.
SYNERGIES:
Mr. and Mrs. X:, with Rogue.
Gambit: Kinetic Energy: Charges fall off 1 second slower.
Rogue: Gain 25% Life Steal, Power Steal, and Buff Steal Potency.
I'll be honest, since I don't have an extensive knowledge of Gambit, I don't really know what to put here for his synergies. You can just fill in his current synergies here, I suppose. The one thing I do know about, though, is Gambit's recent marriage to Rogue, so I decided to represent that here with a synergy.
Final thoughts: I think, with this, Gambit becomes a champion that's able to either focus on Heal Reversal or on big Special Attack damage. We can have a heal reversal champ not in the Science Class, ha (IIRC, CAIW and Void are the only ones who can do it reliably, and I guess Torch as well). I fear I may have made Kinetic Energy charges drop off too slowly to properly mitigate Gambit's "other" style of gameplay - you should be more or less forced to stick to either utility or damage. And at the same time, perhaps Kinetic Energy drops off too quickly to gain any of the full effect. But, oh well. I think this certainly will make Gambit more desirable and interesting than before, perhaps a little bit too much more desirable and interesting. Let me know what you think, and until next time: Au revoir!
Rationale: Black Bolt is pretty one-dimensional in his build. While that's not altogether uncommon in first-generation Champions, he's definitely not the equal of Champions like Karnak (who is in pretty serious need of a rebuild) or his queen, Medusa, who is a pretty kick-ass Champion on both attack and defense. As King of the Inhumans, and with his canonical powers, he should be crushing Champions left and right. He's canonically on par with Thor, Hulk, and Thing, so he should hit about as hard as they do. He can channel and manipulate particles and electrons to absorb concussive force and redirect vast quantities of energy. He can rearrange matter, and has powerful telepathy capable of resisting those well-versed in mental manipulation. None of that is reflected in his power set, and that should be corrected.
BASE STATISTICS:
Hit Points: 15660
Attack: 1148
Crit Rate: 598
Crit Damage: 703
Armor: 273
Block Proficiency: 3556
SIGNATURE ABILITY - MASTER BLOW:
Black Bolt is capable of directing quantities of unknown particles to create controlled phenomena, enhancing his physical strength beyond his normal limits, channeling all the available energy he has into one arm for a single, massively powerful punch called the Master Blow!
ABILITIES:
Telepathy (Passive): Supreme mental conditioning provides immunity to Reversed Controls.
Poison Immunity (Passive): An enhanced immune system provides full immunity to the Poisons of the Battlerealm.
Particle Manipulation: Well-timed blocks have a 100% chance to reduce all damage from Energy-based and Projectile Attacks to 0. Additionally, he can use the Parry Mastery against any basic attack, stunning opponents even if their attack is projectile based.
SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Special 1 - Particle Beam – Channeling unknown particles through the antenna on his forehead, Black Bolt targets his opponent with a focused beam.
- 60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
- This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
- This attack consumes up to 50 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed grants this attack a 2% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 666.67 for 5.50 seconds.
Special 2 - Corkscrew – Surrounded by anti-gravitons, Black Bolt flies into his opponents, forcing them back with multiple strikes.- 70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
- This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
- This attack consumes up to 5 Persistent Charges. Each Persistent Charge consumed inflicts an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 833.35 for each Armor Up buff removed for 12.50 seconds.
Special 3 - Hypersonic Whisper – Black Bolt's power is so immense that a mere whisper is enough to send his enemies into submission.SYNERGIES:
Cosmic Supremacy
- With Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) or Ronan
- All Cosmic Champions gain +30% Buff Duration.
Family- With Karnak or Medusa
- Increases the Maximum Health of all Champions by 6%.
Friends- With Cyclops (New Xavier School), Cyclops (Blue Team), Spider-Man (Classic), Spider-Man (Symbiote), Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), or Spider-Man (Stealth Suit)
- All Champions gain +130 Armor Rating.
Nemesis- With Kang
- All Champions gain 5% attack.
Rivals- With Hulk or Hulk (Ragnarok)
- All Champions gain +155 Critical Damage Rating.
Inhuman Royal Family- With Medusa
- Medusa: Living Strands generates up to 6 Fury Buffs.
- Black Bolt: Once per fight, when Master Blow has been used, Black Bolt has a 50% chance to instantly gain a Persistent Charge.
- Inhuman Royal Family: +25% Attack at the start of the fight if Medusa, Black Bolt and Karnak are together in a team
- Note: This explicitly alters the incoming Synergy from Medusa.
- Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Infnity Foes- With Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, or Thanos
- Black Bolt: Gain 1 additional Electron counter when successfully landing Medium and Heavy Attacks.
- Cull Obsidian: The final strike of Special Attack 2 Stuns for an additional 2 seconds.
- Corvus Glaive: New Mission - Downed Defenses: Knockout a Champion while you have no permanent Glaive charges. Once this mission is complete, your Heavy attacks only consume 1 Glaive charge instead of 3, though all hits are still Critical hits if you have any Glaive charges remaining.
- Thanos: Armor Up and Fury buffs last for an additional +2.0 seconds.
- Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
PREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):Again, I could just be getting intimidated by big numbers like that without actually seeing them in actions, I know I struggle with that concept in a lot of my redesigns. I love the concept of the "Master Blow", one massive punch to end the fight, though, I give that props. It's not a concept I've seen explored yet in the game. I'm a fan of the new immunity and the parry utility. Always love to see reverse controls immune for Delirium nodes, and the parry projectiles just keeps getting more useful with all the IMIWs, havoks and such around the game I like the True Strike specials, and I especially like how, since they're tied into the sig, they reward skillful play. Though, if I may recommend, maybe the Sp2 could consume less charges? 3 max? I could not be seeing how quickly the charges build, but losing up to half of them in one special for a big armor break just sounds like you're gimping yourself a bit too much for your next fight, and unless it's a boss node or I'm just playing recklessly, I don't see myself wanting to lose half of my Master Blow damage bonuses. I like the concept of short-term reward, long term detriment, but I think it seems a bit too punishing. That's just me, though. I like the Sp3, especially because I like long stuns. But, correct me if I'm wrong, isn't 100 Electron counters impossible because they convert to PVs at 100 stacks? Or does the technically activate at the 101st stack? Given the nature of the MCU characters being taken from the MCU universe, I'd argue that those MCU Spider-Men wouldn't belong in this synergy Good otherwise as far as synergies go, but I really don't think Corvus needs a 5th mission. He's already good enough as is haha Overall a wonderful rework! Goes to show that you don't need to write an essay to make a decent champ anymore, props to you all around! A couple of things I would change, though
- I like the sig ability, but it's really a "make or break" for this version of Black Bolt. If it were me, I'd try to incorporate Master Blow into his base kit, and add the sig ability to enhance it. For example, I'd put the fury in the base kit, but keep the cruelty in the sig ability. Something simple like that
- His specials almost seem to not be worth using until you're really into the fight and built up. Personally, I like using my specials (which is a large reason why I never much loved Wolverine). I feel like that'd be mitigated, like I said earlier, by easing the costs special attacks have associated with them even by just a small bit. As it stands, synergy included, one fully charged special 2 eats up about 200 banked hits worth of PVs. I just don't feel like I'd want to get rid of that because of all the time it'd take to get it back. Though I do feel like that's a personal thing for me, because I want to use my specials often. If that was part of the point, then you can just take this point as a "me critique"
I've been meaning to hop back in on this, but I've just been forgetting to and putting it off. Critiquing this, though, has reminded me how much I love this little pocket of the community. Great stuff!
I can think of an easy fix, though:
If launched after landing a fourth light attack, the SP2 consumes PCs. If landed after a medium attack, it doesn't. Simple, and controllable!
I like the Master Blow effect; and given that it's only going to affect a single blow (which can't be the SP3) and take a lot of work, I don't think the big numbers are too excessive. There are a lot of defenders with the likes of Ice Armour or Protection Shielding who can deal with it, anyway.
I'd change the Sig; which you describe as generating Infinite duration passive Fury buffs, and remove the word passive:
1 - Cosmic champions generally make buffs, not Passives.
2 - This does give him a weakness vs Mystics which is entirely appropriate. You can throw in a respawn if nullified statement like Vulture's, if you want.
3 - Being Poison immune whilst producing permanent Fury buffs can occasionally come in handy... Caustic temper paths, anyone?
Thank you both for the review!
To address your concern about the "big numbers", Whododo872, whenever a 4-Star Corvus Glaive (as an example) completes a mission and gains a Persistent Charge, he gains a flat +3000 Critical Damage, and the missions cannot be removed. So... At 4 Missions, he gains +12,000 Critical Damage... On all 20-30 of his Glaive charges, and those refresh periodically throughout the fight (depending on how many are used and how long the fight lasts). So, this version of Black Bolt can gain up to +15,000 Critical Damage on a single blow once (or possibly a handful of times) per fight, while Corvus Glaive can gain up to +12,000 Critical Damage on 20-30 blows each fight. I felt that it was a very modest benefit by comparison.
Canonically, Black Bolt's use of his Master Blow taxes his ability to employ the energy to its full power for a short time. So... He's got to build back up to it mechanically in this rebuild. Canonically, he's also really, really resistant to Fatigue toxins, so I thought about adding that in as an immunity as well... But left it out so as not to overload him with "new goodies". Given the nature of his rebuild, though, I should probably add it in. It's a modest benefit that allows him to really take advantage of that Master Blow mechanic.
You're right, that Ice Armor and Protection Shielding (or Safeguard nodes) are going to reduce the effectiveness of the Master Blow. Upon refection, I think that because it's way less powerful than other Crit-building abilities, perhaps he should be able to ignore (or reduce the effectiveness) of such protective measures.
As for the Special 2 attack, you're both probably right that it should consume fewer Persistent Charges. The benefit to it consuming as many as it does is a counter to Champions like Colossus or Iron Man (Infinity War) that have abilities that depend upon how many Armor Up buffs they have active. Five Persistent Charges is a lot, but it would also strip off up to 5 Armor Up buffs. So... It's something to consider. I do like the idea of not consuming the Persistent Charges to inflict Armor Breaks just to control whether or not you're going to use them up. That's going in the next redesign.
I'll fix the wording on Special 3 (or in the signature ability). You're right that it can't consume 100 Electron counters as they'd have already converted into a Persistent charge.
With regard to the Passive Fury buffs, I like your solution of them respawning a la Vulture, so I'll include that in the next redesign.
Thank you both, and best wishes!
Rationale: Black Bolt is pretty one-dimensional in his build. While that's not altogether uncommon in first-generation Champions, he's definitely not the equal of Champions like Karnak (who is in pretty serious need of a rebuild) or his queen, Medusa, who is a pretty kick-ass Champion on both attack and defense. As King of the Inhumans, and with his canonical powers, he should be crushing Champions left and right. He's canonically on par with Thor, Hulk, and Thing, so he should hit about as hard as they do. He can channel and manipulate particles and electrons to absorb concussive force and redirect vast quantities of energy. He can rearrange matter, and has powerful telepathy capable of resisting those well-versed in mental manipulation. None of that is reflected in his power set, and that should be corrected.
BASE STATISTICS:
Hit Points: 15660
Attack: 1148
Crit Rate: 598
Crit Damage: 703
Armor: 273
Block Proficiency: 3556
SIGNATURE ABILITY - MASTER BLOW:
Black Bolt is capable of directing quantities of unknown particles to create controlled phenomena, enhancing his physical strength beyond his normal limits and channeling all the available energy he has into one arm for a single, massively powerful punch called the Master Blow!
ABILITIES:
Telepathy (Passive): Supreme mental conditioning provides immunity to Reversed Controls.
Inhuman Immunities (Passive): An enhanced immune system provides full immunity to Fatigue, and full immunity to the Poisons of the Battlerealm.
Particle Manipulation: Black Bolt generates +1 Electron counter per second. He gains +50 Energy Resistance for each Electron counter he has. (Max: 101 Electron Counters)
Well-Timed Blocks: Well-timed blocks have a 100% chance to reduce all damage from Energy-based and Projectile Attacks to 0. Additionally, he can use the Parry Mastery against any basic attack, stunning opponents even if their attack is projectile based.
SPECIAL ATTACKS:
Special 1 - Particle Beam – Channeling unknown particles through the antenna on his forehead, Black Bolt targets his opponent with a focused beam.
- 60% chance to Stun for 3.0 seconds.
- This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
- This attack consumes up to 50 Electron counters. Each Electron counter consumed grants this attack a 2% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 666.67 for 5.50 seconds.
Special 2 - Corkscrew – Surrounded by anti-gravitons, Black Bolt flies into his opponents, forcing them back with multiple strikes.- 70% chance to Stun for 4.0 seconds.
- This attack deals True Damage, ignoring all Armor and Resistances. If Black Bolt has 5 or more Persistent Charges, this attack has True Strike instead.
- If this Special Attack is launched following the fourth Light attack of a Combo, this attack consumes up to 5 Persistent Charges. Each Persistent Charge consumed inflicts an Armor Break debuff on his opponent, removing 1 Armor Up buff and reducing Armor Rating by 833.35 for each Armor Up buff removed for 12.50 seconds.
Special 3 - Hypersonic Whisper – Black Bolt's power is so immense that a mere whisper is enough to send his enemies into submission.SYNERGIES:
Cosmic Supremacy
- With Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan) or Ronan
- All Cosmic Champions gain +30% Buff Duration.
Family- With Karnak or Medusa
- Increases the Maximum Health of all Champions by 6%.
Friends- With Cyclops (New Xavier School), Cyclops (Blue Team), Spider-Man (Classic), Spider-Man (Symbiote), Spider-Man (Stark Enhanced), or Spider-Man (Stealth Suit)
- All Champions gain +130 Armor Rating.
Nemesis- With Kang
- All Champions gain 5% attack.
Rivals- With Hulk or Hulk (Ragnarok)
- All Champions gain +155 Critical Damage Rating.
Inhuman Royal Family- With Medusa
- Medusa: Living Strands generates up to 6 Fury Buffs.
- Black Bolt: Once per fight, when Master Blow has been used, Black Bolt has a 50% chance to instantly gain a Persistent Charge.
- Inhuman Royal Family: +25% Attack at the start of the fight if Medusa, Black Bolt and Karnak are together in a team
- Note: This explicitly alters the incoming Synergy from Medusa.
- Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Infnity Foes- With Cull Obsidian, Corvus Glaive, or Thanos
- Black Bolt: Gain 1 additional Electron counter when successfully landing Medium and Heavy Attacks.
- Cull Obsidian: The final strike of Special Attack 2 Stuns for an additional 2 seconds.
- Corvus Glaive: New Mission - Downed Defenses: Knockout a Champion while you have no permanent Glaive charges. Once this mission is complete, your Heavy attacks only consume 1 Glaive charge instead of 3, though all hits are still Critical hits if you have any Glaive charges remaining.
- Thanos: Armor Up and Fury buffs last for an additional +2.0 seconds.
- Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies.
Secret WarriorsPREVIOUS REVISIONS (minus Champions that Kabam has already revised):
Some slight rearrangement of his abilities to round him out a bit and give him some more utility without requiring his Signature Ability for everything. If you have any constructive criticisms, let me know in a follow-up post! Thanks, and best wishes!
My only two questions would be - are the first four lines of the sig meant to be in the sig, or should they instead be a part of the base kit (it seems a little pointless to lock additional, controllable methods of getting EC's behind awakening?), and could you potentially make a special attack a Master Blow (because that's gotta hurt, big-time)?
Fairly minor, but it could end up making a big difference in the end. Anyways, overall, it's great, as always! (Would be nice if someone reviewed my Gambit,
Without his Signature Ability unlocked, he gains his full Electron counter allotment at 1:41 into the fight. With his Signature Ability unlocked, he can to full allotment with either 9-11 Heavy Attacks (depending upon how fast you land them), or by the end of his 8th or 9th Combo (depending on how fast he pulls off his Combos), but then they're going to reset as they convert to Persistent Charges. The Master Blow is going to be really useful in long fights, and it's still going to pack a pretty hefty wallop in short fights as well. It'll be less useful in Alliance Quest or Alliance War, where there won't likely be enough time to build up to full potential in a single fight, and then it'll take some ramping up to get it back again. Save your Master Blow for mini-bosses and the end Boss.
Could you make a Special Attack a Master Blow? Yes, absolutely. You set up the Master Blow, and the next successful hit uses the Ability. That could make his Special Attacks particularly devastating if you time it right. It also means that you could potentially chain weaker Master Blows by only using Special Attack 3, since Special Attack 3 generates one Persistent Charge, but successive SP3's are not going to hit much harder than Scarlet Witch could with her SP2. It's a very hard hit, but nothing ridiculous.
Thanks for the insights! I really appreciate working with you all to redesign Champions (and I hope that Kabam finds inspiration here to rebuild older, out of date Champions with greater frequency than they have so far).
Best wishes, all!
First thoughts: this looks fun (must revisit my Gambit rework some time! It was a long time ago, and I didn't put in half the effort you did)
I think maybe there's a spelling mistake in his Kinetic charges: "However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 0 seconds. This rate is increased by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is.". That would make it easier to maintain them at high Power Levels - at zero power he loses them instantly; and at full power they persist for six seconds. I think that wasn't what you intended?
Maybe your intention might be better expressed along the lines "However, Gambit can only focus so much energy at once, and loses one Kinetic Energy charge every 10 seconds. This time is reduced by up to 6 seconds the higher Gambit's Power Meter is."
Aside from that, I really like it. Versatile, interesting, fun...
I like the specials and their effects; although if the kinetic charges are affecting the duration, potency and ability accuracy you should make it clear.
The only thing I'd add would be to the Heavy attack - you can stack 10 kinetic charges, but only 5 Prowess. What happens to the left-over energy? Why not "Any excess kinetic charges are consumed as a burst of Physical damage equal to 25% of the damage inflicted by the Heavy attack" or something like that?
I suppose if you had ten, you could Heavy, Special, Heavy to regain Prowess; but I kind of think consuming them for extra damage immediately is more Gambit's style.
Oh, BTW: It's not really relevant, but let's not forget the original Heal Reversal champ, Guillotine. If you wanted anything to review...
First thought: Probably going to have to cap that 2% total HP damage from Bladethirst, the same way Loki's SP2 damage is capped. I love the idea of % based damage for Guilly, because Souls are quite difficult to get against higher HP opponents, but I think realistically that damage is always going to be capped. If you put it at a cap of maybe 100k damage, which, iirc, is what Loki's SP2 is capped at right now, that's still really powerful in LoL/AoL without being free kills.
Second thought: couldn't you just make Spectre a passive effect, like Mysterio's Heal Block? That'd bypass shrugging off in the same way, except it wouldn't trigger willpower, so I suppose if you really want that extra damage...
A few other loose thoughts: Stagger is nice, True Accuracy is meta-relevant and a good ability without being too OP, and I like the incorporation of a weakness against Soulless opponents. Doc Strange synergy makes Life Steal reliable, which is always nice, but I'd add a cooldown - maybe 5-8 seconds?
My main concern would be how Guillotine's current synergies factor into this, since, if you have them all, they make her pretty good as is. I'm sure that said preexisting synergies can be tuned down a little a la Emma Frost-Colossus synergy, so it should be alright. Overall, though, I like it! It's not overly complicated, but it's certainly meta-relevant in more than one way.
So there are my thoughts on your Guilly rework. Let me know if there are any other champions that haven't been done here that y'all'd be interested in seeing, and until next time!
You're right that it's not much of a change to her current Signature, and I think that you may be missing an opportunity here. So far, this doesn't particularly impress. She gets some soul shards if she's taking Bleed damage, which is nice. If she has Bleed immunity (such as that granted by a Node or Global buff), then this benefit is lost, and that's a shame. How many soul shards can Guillotine go up to? The Critical Damage rating is less than she was getting before, but the fact that she loses a soul shard every 10 seconds means that she's constantly losing the best abilities that she gets, since most everything is dependent upon those soul shards. That's been the problem with Guillotine since her inception... The fact that she's constantly losing instead of building up to something (or hitting plateaus, as some abilities that convert to Persistent charges or permanent Passive buffs do).
True Accuracy is always nice, and the Armor Up is also cool... But the Ability Accuracy reduction against Cosmic and Mystic Champions means that she is less likely to gain soul shards if Champions like Drax or Gamora make her bleed. That actually makes the benefit described in the previous quote less useful, don't you think?
Now let's say that Guillotine manages to acquire 20 soul shards. That means that she's got +700 Armor (not too shabby), and +50% Ability Accuracy reduction against Cosmic and Mystic Opponents' offensive abilities. That sounds pretty nice, but it keeps on falling off, and she's got to inflict 6% of the opponent's maximum Health in damage to keep grabbing another soul shard (or take bleed damage herself). Against weak opponents, she won't be able to take advantage of those soul shards quickly enough (because they'll be dead), and against really strong opponents (such as bosses in Alliance Quest and Alliance War, or Labyrinth/Abyss of Legends opponents), she'll have to work much harder to gain those soul shards. That's part of what holds her back right now. Labyrinth Maestro has 3,386,998 hit points. 6% of that is 203,220 hit points. Is she going to cause that much damage in 10 seconds? She'll be losing soul shards faster than she can gain them and will go back and forth between 1 soul shard and none.
As a thought, I might recommend that she has to inflict a certain percentage of her own attack value to gain a soul shard (making her weaker toward opponents that are weaker than she is, but stronger toward opponents that are far more powerful than she is). You could set it at 750% of her Base Attack value. A 4-star Rank 5/50 Guillotine has a Base Attack value of 1216. Dealing 9120 damage to gain a soul shard isn't horrendous, and it gives her a chance to accumulate soul shards faster than they may fall off, since 9120 damage over 10 seconds isn't unreasonable at that point.
If that was the threshold, you could potentially gain (and lose) 371 soul shards over the course of a fight with Ex. Maestro, which is a lot, so you may want to play around with the numbers to find something that fits right. Some language cleanup is needed here. "Critical Hits have a 60% chance to inflict 1108 Bleed damage over 6.0 seconds. Champions immune to Bleed debuffs instead Degenerate 1108 over 6.0 seconds. This Ability has no effect upon Robot Champions." Having it have no effect upon Bleed-immune Champions means that the Degeneration effect would never trigger. Dormammu (a dimensional being) is not a robot, but is Bleed immune. Colossus is also Bleed immune. I don't think that your intention was to exempt those types of Champions from Guillotine's Abilities. However, I do find it somewhat odd that mostly Tech Champions resist her Abilities, rather than Science Champions (who she has class disadvantage against). Perhaps that's something to consider? Here's where I think you may be missing some opportunities. Only Special 2 makes any use of the Specter, and Special 1 and 3 could easily trigger effects based upon how many soul shards Guillotine possesses at the time of activation.
Nullification is certainly appropriate to grant to Guillotine's power set, and she should definitely have it. An 8.0 second Stagger is pretty decent (12.0 against Cosmic Champions). But, that's the only thing that SP1 grants? I think that you miss an opportunity to grant her some greater utility here, since her Ability set is fairly limited as-is.
Special 2's ability to nix Tenacity, Masochism, and other "shrug off" abilities is an excellent addition to that Special's benefit. But, against Champions that do not heal... there is no benefit. Perhaps something else should be added in to prevent this benefit from being so niche?
The Bladethirst is very cool, but it ends early if she gains a couple of soul shards? It's probably going to end early frequently with that increase in Crit Rating combined with the health drain. I suspect this benefit is going to need a bit of revision. Just something to think about. The Synergies are fine, but overall, I think that your revision doesn't add as much as you think it does to her kit. I think that greater use of Spectral or Phantasmal abilities is warranted, that soul shards shouldn't be dependent upon an opponent's percentages (which seriously weakens her against far more powerful opponents), and that there should be some sort of "plateau" mechanic to allow Guillotine to build up some sort of a buffer against constant soul shard falloff.
I'm interested to see what you could do with another swing at this. I'm interested to take my own swing, but I don't want to steal your thunder here.
Best wishes!
Thanks! Kabam for making Doctor Doom awesome!!!!
I may take a look at Guilly again. On the other hand, given some of her synergy buffs, maybe I don't need to!
I had a play with her in ROL the other day utilising the available synergies with Morningstar, Gamora, and Ronin; which help her harvest and maintain souls.
Using a 2/35 Awakened Guilly, she finishes WS in about five minutes and <300 hits; building souls relentlessly and finishing with an SP3 for >50% of his health. Which I reckon is pretty impressive for an 'old' champ at only 2/35.
Immunity:
Incinerate, placing incineration on Sentry boosts his attacks
Molecular Reformation
At the Start of a fight, Reality Warps persist with Sentry from the previous fight.
Reality Warp
At the start of a fight and after every 20 Hits in a Combo, Sentry gains a Reality Warp. Reality Warps stack up to 6 max. Reality Warps are used as a multiplier for his abilities.
Steadfast Approach: 100% chance on entering this State.
SP1: 60% chance to incinerate, 40% chance to power burn
Make Aptitude Buff stackable up to Max 2.
Vigilance Buff should also cause evade fail
Passive:
Silver Surfer takes -100% damage from Coldsnap, Incinerate, and Shock Debuffs. Each stack of these Debuffs count as a Unique Buff for any of Silver Surfer's abilities.
Each hit deals a Burst of 136.5 Energy Damage for each Unique Buff. This scales with modified attack.
Thanos
Signature Ability: Nigh-Invulnerability
Once per fight when the Mad Titan is struck by a blow that would knock him out, Thanos immediately becomes invulnerable for X seconds (1 second per buff active), and regenerates 5% Health per Buff. His buffs gain an increase of 25% potency.
Abilities
Bionic Amplification (Passive):
Thanos has a Bionic Amplification Buff that refreshes every 10 seconds. When this effect activates, a random Buff is gained from the list below. Maximum 10 Buffs each.
Resist Physical: 20% increased Physical Resistance
Resist Energy: 20% increased Energy Resistance
Resist Critical: 20% increased Critical Resistance
Cosmic Energy Manipulation (Passive):
This Champion begins the fight with 15% Max Power.
Whenever Thanos uses Special Attacks he immediately regains 15% Max Power
Eternal Physiology (Passive):
Eternal physiology grants immunity to all known poisons within the Battlerealm.
Thanos Armor (Passive):
The Mad Titan's Armor gives special attack resistance of up to 20% damage reduction.
When Struck by Basic Attacks: 15% chance to Armor Up, increasing Armor Rating by 20% for 5.5 seconds.
All Attacks: 10% chance for Fury, increasing Attack by 30% for 6.5 seconds.
Special Attacks: 100% chance for Heal Block lasting 9.5 seconds.
Special Attacks
Special 1: Obliterate – Two rapid and devastating cosmic blasts from the Mad Titan soften up his opponent.
Converts 50% of Physical Resistance buffs to Armor Break for 5 seconds.
This Special Attack deals True Damage, ignoring all of the opponent's Armor.
Special 2: Terminate – Rage and power combine to launch Thanos' target into the air with mighty concussive blasts.
Consumes 50% of Energy Resistance Buffs to inflict Concussion, reducing the opponent’s Ability Accuracy by 25% per Debuff converted for 10 seconds.
50% chance of converting Critical Resistance to Cruelty
This Special Attack deals True Damage, ignoring all of the opponent's Armor.
Special 3: Exterminate – With a heavy heart, Thanos prepares to introduce his foe to his one true love.
100% Chance to Stun your opponent for 5 seconds
Deadpool X-Force
DPX is pretty much bottom of the barrel in the mutant class; and one of the worst pulls in the six-star crystal. If he wasn't part of Nick Fury's best synergy team he'd be totally useless. No real skills, no effects apart from a low-level bleed; and no actual special abilities till he's 70% dead...
I've revisited an old rework, aiming to give him just a few canon-friendly tricks without making him overpowered.
No reskin required, although I'd want to give him full-time swords like Kabam did for Drax aeons ago. Still no regeneration though - at least in the comics, he didn't have regeneration during his X-Force phase...
That's right! Full-time swords! I always wondered how I made people bleed by punching them anyway, just because I had silver stars. And hey! What ya mean, bottom of the barrel? You ****ing ****! You think Cyclops is more effective than me?
Health 14,660
Attack 1139
Signature: When he drops below 30% health, (or if he starts a fight below 30% health) Deadpool has a 2000% chance to gain short-lived Power Gain, Fury and Cruelty passive effects. These grant up to +80% Attack, +160% Critical damage and +60% Power Gain over five seconds.
That's right - 2000%. Suck on that, Crossbones! And passive effects, so you Mystic ****s can suck it too! Ain't no-one stopping this badass from kicking ass!
Power Gain: When he drops below 60% health (or starts a fight below 60% health), Deadpool has a 1000% chance to gain a short-lived Power Gain passive, granting +30% Power Gain over four seconds.
Yeah! No more waiting till the end of the fight for this Power Gain!
If he is Awakened and starts the fight below 30% health, his Awakened ability supercedes this lesser Power Gain ability - they do not stack
Ego Power!
Deadpool gains Ego-fuelled bonuses any time he feels he's done something particularly impressive - when he lands two consecutive critical hits, when he counters an opponent's Heavy attack with his own; or when he uses Dexterity to Evade a Special Attack. Cool-down of 3 seconds. Bonuses are chosen at random from this list -
Passive: Deadpool's chaotic fighting style and thought processes make him difficult to fight, granting the following benefits:
- Opponents suffer -250 Critical Rating and Block proficiency
- He reduces his opponent's Autoblock and Evade chances by 50%.
- When struck by a combo-ending basic attack, his opponents have a 30% chance to lose track of what they're doing, and reset their own combo meter to zero
- External effects that measure Deadpool's own combo meter (such as Counter Tactics or Despair nodes) cannot count it above five
- Sentinel gains analysis charges as though DPX were a Cosmic champion.
- DPX is immune to Taskmaster's Exploit Weakness ability.
Chaotic? You mean awesome! Those guys just can't keep up with my amazing fighting skillsKatana Attacks: Deadpool's heavy attack, first medium and first two light attacks and his SP2 are katana attacks.
Katana attacks that hit the opponent have +180 critical rating, and have a 20% chance to inflict bleed for 490 damage over four seconds. Bleed potency and duration are both increased by 40% when a bleed is inflicted by critical hits.
Katanas. Oh yeah. That's how you make people bleed, baby! I wonder why that hottie Psylocke doesn't make people bleed with hers?
Special Attacks
When a Special Attack would trigger an Ego Power bonus, the usual Cool-down timer does not apply.
SP1 - 75% chance to inflict 25% Weakness for eight seconds. Female and robotic characters are immune to this effect. When an opponent is affected by this Weakness debuff, Deadpool triggers one of his Ego Power bonuses.
SP2 - Instead of the usual benefits of standard Katana strikes, this whirlwind attack gains +999 critical rating, and has a 99% chance to inflict bleed for 980 damage over four seconds. If he hits the opponent, Deadpool triggers an Ego Power bonus.
SP3 - Deadpool takes a sneaky shot at his opponent with a Carbonadium bullet, bypassing 75% of their Physical Resistance and inflicting a Passive Heal Block for ten seconds. 100% chance to inflict bleed for 1220 damage over five seconds. Deadpool triggers an Ego Power bonus in celebration.
Synergies
Get into the Pool (Deadpool, Goldpool, Venompool): Unique synergy:
Smack-Talk Superstars (Stark-Enhanced Spiderman, Stealth-suit Spiderman): Unique Synergy
Love me like you do (Cable): Unique synergy