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The new end date will be May 1st.
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Potential Luke Cage Buff
Mr_Otter
Posts: 1,614 ★★★
His abilities as current are annoyingly pathetic
Special attacks 1 and 2:
Taking advantage of the enemies weakened state all hits have an increased 10% chance to crit per Exhasustion on the enemy up to 40%
All special attacks:
80% chance to become indestructible
(Could also be an added effect of his signature ability)
All special attacks:
100% chance to apply Armor Break 30% for 6 seconds
Each exhaustion extends the potency by 9% and duration by 1 second
Special attacks 1 and 2:
Taking advantage of the enemies weakened state all hits have an increased 10% chance to crit per Exhasustion on the enemy up to 40%
All special attacks:
80% chance to become indestructible
(Could also be an added effect of his signature ability)
All special attacks:
100% chance to apply Armor Break 30% for 6 seconds
Each exhaustion extends the potency by 9% and duration by 1 second
2
Comments
Because I'm not trolling and actually care about bringing a few champs up to usable
Usable is subjective. Cage is good for Defense.
Really? For shear BULK Dorm, UC, Rhino, Rulk, HB, Juggernaut, Ultron, KG ALL beat him hit for hit
Many special attacks bypass his Resists too easy and Armor breaks still apply.
Dorm is unavoidable damage too
Rhino has unstoppable dashes that are risky to parry if he goes Unblockable
Juggernaut is unstoppable after specials, has huge armor that isn't breakable (passive)
UC goes unstoppable, is bleed immune, and has both fury and Armor (breakable)
Rulk has HUGE physical resist that can't be nulled and an impressive attack given he's "TANK" (poison immune too for any AA/VD that wanna walk through)
Ultron has a semi-reliable regen and on L2 Enhanced is lethal like Spider-Man L1 and has passive armor plus double immunities
HB at least counters Fury and even if Fury has a cap HB doesn't so he'll stack them even when SL and Thor "refresh" fury
And KG… let's just say he's borderline immortal when a half decent AI gets to use him
Luke Cage has no Untoppable periods that make him impossible to hit, no regen, the resistance is a Buff, and he hits like a pillow
Nothing about him makes him defense material UNLESS you have very few 4*s
Even KG and HB have armor breaks…
Defense is NOTHING if his attacks do almost nothing. Otherwise it's a long and boring fight with no risks
This would actually probably be the best way to do it. Just make him go indestructible for a short time after his specials end like juggernauts unstoppable. If you really want to give him more damage somehow just add in that he does more damage to stunned opponents (similar to she-hulk), but honestly he's intended as a defensive wall. Luke Cage isn't meant to do a lot of damage, just be a tough bugger to take down on good nodes in AW.
Starburst IF THAT! And people rarely even explore that thoroughly
Once you get to even tier 8 and above people start packing everything from SL to SW to VD
NC and both Classic and Sym spiders are supposed to be hard buggers to fight but across the board they are also some HEAVY damage dealers
Classic spider is a fairly hard hitter and L1 unblockable makes his L1 VERY dangerous and his L2 is almost death if it hits
Sym Spider is a step up with less Evade but more abuse. Mis time a Dex and you got a long lasting armor break and Critical boosts from crits can turn a slip up into critical condition and his Evade when it procs is better than Classic
Then you have NC… my record on WS is around 300 hits
For comparison:
•SL is around 180 hits
•Wolverine is juuust short of 1000 hits (no Deep wounds)
•And projections place Gwenpool with mostly Incinerates between 400-700 hits depending on rng... (no Deep wounds)
Even HB who is a laughing stock of a champion (with the excuse he's a wall) has a useable L2 with Armor Break and people say his L3 is impressive considering how little he normally hits
If we don't Buff this Luke Cage then when they finally add Netflix LC we'll have a champion that will hurt himself whenever he lands a hit
You mean besides Indestructible, Bleed Immunity, Stun, and Physical Resist, there's nothing. Right? The point I'm trying to make is he has a use.
No offense but you think cap is a good defender. The only use use Luke cage has is to hold the door open while the real champs go to work for defence
As everyone said, even though his damage output sucks, he's good on AW defence. He usually puts people off guard that use skill champs that rely on bleed such as GP.
never mind Voodoo, SW, SL, Thor, Hulk, X23, Elektra, CB, Vision, Ice, Stark Spider (the lucky ones who have him)… yeah only bleed champs in AW attack
Indestructible is SO short at the start of the fight
Honestly Punisher is a better defender with the Physical resistance and a killer L2 when Enhanced
@GroundedWisdom
All LC stuns require him to land a special attack and to have any decent chance have to land MANY light attacks first. As far as physical resistance goes the above champs who dominate attack really DONT CARE! Even pre-fix 12.0 Thor laughs at him
I know but I already did Magneto, Abomination, Joe Fixit, SpiderGwen… and as I haven't been able to TEST a Carnage yet LC was next on my list
In Defense of Luke Cage:
He really isn't that bad. You need to compare like with like - there's no point comparing his damage output to the Spidermen. They're glass cannons. He's a tank. Can you compare him with Hyperion? That's hardly fair. Hyperion is clearly a God, and Luke shouldn't be one of those.
(1) Poor damage? His actual damage per attack is exactly the same as Colossus and Hulkbuster. He has better critical damage than either of them, and he and Colossus have a better crit rate than HB. It looks like he does less on specials, but only because his are split into numerous blows, rather than one or two big hits. For standard attacks, Luke is the clear winner of these three.
(2) Additional effects of Specials:
Yes, Luke's Stun percentage could be higher, but isn't too bad with Exhaustion factored in. HB has a decent Armour Break; Colossus has neither. He gets better damage with armour, but had a low proc rate; and Armour can be broken. He gets lower damage when his armour gets broken! I'd give Luke a strong second place, here.
(3) Is he tough enough? His base armour and health are the same as Colossus, HB has slightly better of each. However LC and Colossus are both bleed immune, and HB isn't, despite wearing armour over a foot thick. All strong!
(4) Armour or physical Resistance? LC has similar levels of resistance to physical attacks; but no Energy Resistance. Also, his PR can't stack, whilst Awakened Colossus and a HB facing Furies can stack up loads.
On the other hand: Physical Resistance isn't subject to being broken. It can be nullified, sure, but so can almost everything. Add to this the fact that whilst Luke can't stack PR, the longer duration and substantially higher proc rate means he usually spends almost the whole fight with PR in place.
Overall, I'd say Luke is set up for greater resilience against Physical attacks, taken over the whole length of a fight. Yes, he has only base armour resistance to Energy attacks, but so what? That's true of almost every non-mystic character without an Armour Up ability! It's a weak spot in his armour, but hardly a crippling weakness. Give me Luke's bleed immunity over Hulkbuster's better Energy resistance any day. I'd put Luke on a par with the others; and not send him against people with strong energy attacks; just like I try not to send Colossus against Spider-Man with his regular Armour Breaks!
Does Luke need a buff?
Maybe, but not a big one. It would be easy to overdo it. I have three suggestions, but all three would definitely be overdoing it:
(1) I actually really like Mr_Otter's suggestion above of Luke getting a critical boost with each Exhaustion, as his opponents can't defend so well. That fits with his 'wear them down' approach.
(2) To go with his physical resistance/indestructible phenotype, why not make Luke immune to Armour Break? Optionally, this could be part of his Sig; with a % chance to resist Armour Break effects; rather than being totally resistant to it all the time.
(3) More time invulnerable - either to have this effect generated or refreshed by his SP3. Definitely not by his SP1 or SP2; or within a month people will be fighting with no-one but Luke Cage, and begging for a nerf.
I agree, he needs to be buffed up to contend with new additions.
To work off your ideas:
1. The exhasution Debuff is his special thing that makes him unique so seeing exhaustion be more than just Crit Damage reduction and actually make it easier to land crits on the "exhausted" could actually make a mistake on him potentially deal noticeable damage.
2. Armor break resistance scaled off his signature WOULD make him extra special as a VERT annoying defender and a long fight could pressure an enemy to slip up or even timeout more freaquently especially on other nodes like Optimism and Pessimism and armor-giving nodes
3. Indestructible COULD be worked as 20% Sp1
50% Sp2
100% Sp3
Which while not super impressive could be an impressive surprise or even beneficial in arena, while not being overwhelmingly overpowered as to not be able to abused on power gain node
4. Where Colossus is concerned I've always been in the camp that ALL his specials should scale off armor and not just his Sp3
Perhaps his ability to "Ignore Armor Break" from his signature could actually absorb the armor break and turn it into Physical resistance giving him counter play to a few more champs
Nice tweak.
It would be nice if it reactivated after a certain combo or after sp2+3 tho.
Here's why I like to play with LC still occasionally:
1. He gives you a free mess up! Literally you can hit the opponent 40 times and then mess up an evade or parry doesn't work and bam you get nailed but no damage! Another combo chain and they're done.
2. This is, up until recently I think, was the ONLY fool proof counter to the Sp3. In fact I have purposely continued to hit an opponent who's close to dying (instead of baiting the sp), let them get that red power meter, fire off their sp3, just to deliver NO damage to Luke (assuming I hadn't been hit yet), then I finish them off.
3. Good reviver use for those 350 revives that do nothing for most champs. That gives you a chance to finish off a boss or champ and still take a hit!
4. His stun is consistent enough to be useful to me. More often than not I get a decent stun chain with sp1.
5. Didn't have a better science champ at the time and he was useful for class diversity and that class advantage when I needed it.
6. Seemed to hold his own well enough on degen nodes.
7. Bleed immune.
2. OR simply make him SP3 immune. That way, even though his attacks are weak, he can continue spamming the opponent with punches more aggressively without worrying about their inevitable unblockable SP3. You wouldn't have to take much time baiting Specials like you do currently with other champs.
With all these "Luke Cage needs a buff" and "almost every champion is better than Luke cage" threads.... Has anyone stopped to consider that Luke Cage is not an elite hero? He has his fans, and he's got a fun personality dynamic, but he TRULY is one of the worst powered heroes in the marvel universe. He doesn't need a buff cuz he sucks. Legit. He just sucks. Not kabams version, just his actual comic book version. In comparison to almost every other hero (minus Jessica Jones), he's not even worth mentioning...