Buff List Needs To Be Changed
V1PER1987
Member Posts: 3,474 ★★★★★
Kabam released a list of champs the community could vote for Kabam to buff in the future. Colossus won with an overwhelming majority, but there are a few champs on that list that really don’t need a buff as badly as others.
Venompool - I’m not sure where this “vote” came from but Venompool is not a champ I often hear people crying out to buff. Heavy bleed, heal block, and buff nullify + regen is very solid. Plus newer synergies make him that much better.
Old Man Logan - it’s been hinted at that he’s part of a current buff beta, but let’s pretend that doesn’t exist. I know people talk negatively a lot about him but once he goes berserk and unleashes specials, he does some respectable damage with his bleeds and the consistent regen is better than you think. Best part is it can’t be nullified, only heal blocked/reversed.
Howard the Duck - I know he’s been a meme champ for a while and most people just don’t really like him. However there is a video out there showing that he can take down X-23 in LOL which is more than you can say about most champs, even if it did take a huge ramp up. Double regen plus some hefty damage and random effects on L2 is still better than the champs I will suggest below.
Iron Patriot - One of the great meme champs of our time. Iron Patriot could use a little something extra special but he still has the ability to armor break and trigger decently long stuns. His sig also allows him to regain health and gain power giving him some additional survivability and firepower. Yeah he could use a buff, but not as desperately as others.
Kamala Khan - Alright so this is where it starts to get bad. She does have the ability to stack quite a few fury and increase the potency and duration of them, but it still feels like she doesn’t hit hard at all. She can also nullify some buffs under the right circumstances, but I will admit she could use a buff, albeit not as bad as others.
Groot - Okay, we’ve hit the bottom. It’s really confusing how a champ that can proc so many fury and cruelty buffs still hits for next to nothing. And the regen he has is a pitiful joke. No redeeming synergies or anything to make him close to being viable.
The champs I am about to recommend for expedited buffs are champs I’m sure everyone has mentioned or would agree with. I personally believe they have been cried out for buffs far more than any of the champs above, maybe save Groot or Kamala.
Magneto - I believe this is the number 1 buff request if I’ve ever seen it. I see people asking for Magneto buffs all the time and it always seems to fall upon deaf ears, especially after seeing the buff list. How could one of the most recognizable and powerful mutants in the universe be one of the worst champs in the game. It’s so insulting and disgusting how awful of a champion he is when you can do so much with him. How he never made it on the list of champs to be buffed I’ll never know.
Hulkbuster - There’s really not much to say about him because there’s really not much to talk about. He doesn’t do anything. He’s a trash can that piles on the armor and has virtually zero offensive value, short of his sad armor breaks. He also has zero defensive value. I am a bit biased because I’ve pulled him so many times I can’t even count from featured 5* and I currently have a 6* that makes me depressed and angry every time I see him. He is probably one of the worst champs in the game currently if not the worst.
Rhino - I know people will say he already got buffed with unstoppable and unblockable, but that’s not really a serious buff. Rhino is a force to be reckoned with and deserves better than to be benched. He should have some more offensive force. Maybe raise his attack with successful unblockable attacks or something. I’m not a character developer but I know he should be better.
Juggernaut - In the same vein as Rhino, Juggernaut has gotten a “buff” but not really. Just like Rhino, Juggernaut is a powerful monster that should be able to dish out some serious damage and leave champs in a world of hurt. Instead he hits about as hard as a branch slapping against you. I used to watch X-Men all the time and Magneto and Juggernaut were such strong characters and always created a huge obstacle for the X-Men. I would love to see Magneto and Juggernaut reflective of their status in the comics/shows instead of being a huge joke that people walk all over.
I would love to hear back from Kabam and get a response as to why these champs were left off the list. Is it simply because you don’t want to buff anymore 6* champs after LC, Rulk, and Gamora? Because I am fairly certain these champs were requested to be buffed more than anyone else on your buff list.
To you summoners out there, do you agree these 4 should be expedited on the buff list or is the list fine as is? Or is there a different champ I didn’t mention that you think should be at the top?
Venompool - I’m not sure where this “vote” came from but Venompool is not a champ I often hear people crying out to buff. Heavy bleed, heal block, and buff nullify + regen is very solid. Plus newer synergies make him that much better.
Old Man Logan - it’s been hinted at that he’s part of a current buff beta, but let’s pretend that doesn’t exist. I know people talk negatively a lot about him but once he goes berserk and unleashes specials, he does some respectable damage with his bleeds and the consistent regen is better than you think. Best part is it can’t be nullified, only heal blocked/reversed.
Howard the Duck - I know he’s been a meme champ for a while and most people just don’t really like him. However there is a video out there showing that he can take down X-23 in LOL which is more than you can say about most champs, even if it did take a huge ramp up. Double regen plus some hefty damage and random effects on L2 is still better than the champs I will suggest below.
Iron Patriot - One of the great meme champs of our time. Iron Patriot could use a little something extra special but he still has the ability to armor break and trigger decently long stuns. His sig also allows him to regain health and gain power giving him some additional survivability and firepower. Yeah he could use a buff, but not as desperately as others.
Kamala Khan - Alright so this is where it starts to get bad. She does have the ability to stack quite a few fury and increase the potency and duration of them, but it still feels like she doesn’t hit hard at all. She can also nullify some buffs under the right circumstances, but I will admit she could use a buff, albeit not as bad as others.
Groot - Okay, we’ve hit the bottom. It’s really confusing how a champ that can proc so many fury and cruelty buffs still hits for next to nothing. And the regen he has is a pitiful joke. No redeeming synergies or anything to make him close to being viable.
The champs I am about to recommend for expedited buffs are champs I’m sure everyone has mentioned or would agree with. I personally believe they have been cried out for buffs far more than any of the champs above, maybe save Groot or Kamala.
Magneto - I believe this is the number 1 buff request if I’ve ever seen it. I see people asking for Magneto buffs all the time and it always seems to fall upon deaf ears, especially after seeing the buff list. How could one of the most recognizable and powerful mutants in the universe be one of the worst champs in the game. It’s so insulting and disgusting how awful of a champion he is when you can do so much with him. How he never made it on the list of champs to be buffed I’ll never know.
Hulkbuster - There’s really not much to say about him because there’s really not much to talk about. He doesn’t do anything. He’s a trash can that piles on the armor and has virtually zero offensive value, short of his sad armor breaks. He also has zero defensive value. I am a bit biased because I’ve pulled him so many times I can’t even count from featured 5* and I currently have a 6* that makes me depressed and angry every time I see him. He is probably one of the worst champs in the game currently if not the worst.
Rhino - I know people will say he already got buffed with unstoppable and unblockable, but that’s not really a serious buff. Rhino is a force to be reckoned with and deserves better than to be benched. He should have some more offensive force. Maybe raise his attack with successful unblockable attacks or something. I’m not a character developer but I know he should be better.
Juggernaut - In the same vein as Rhino, Juggernaut has gotten a “buff” but not really. Just like Rhino, Juggernaut is a powerful monster that should be able to dish out some serious damage and leave champs in a world of hurt. Instead he hits about as hard as a branch slapping against you. I used to watch X-Men all the time and Magneto and Juggernaut were such strong characters and always created a huge obstacle for the X-Men. I would love to see Magneto and Juggernaut reflective of their status in the comics/shows instead of being a huge joke that people walk all over.
I would love to hear back from Kabam and get a response as to why these champs were left off the list. Is it simply because you don’t want to buff anymore 6* champs after LC, Rulk, and Gamora? Because I am fairly certain these champs were requested to be buffed more than anyone else on your buff list.
To you summoners out there, do you agree these 4 should be expedited on the buff list or is the list fine as is? Or is there a different champ I didn’t mention that you think should be at the top?
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Comments
The Champions you've listed may get a lot of conversation, but are statistically performing better than other Champions. We haven't released any Champions as 6-Stars that were performing/being utilized as low as those were.
Statistically speaking, they're not doing as bad as the others that were on that list. That's not to say that they won't be buffed in the future, but they're not as high as a priority as these were.
As for Magneto, he is just disappointing. His abilities could be great if he was tweaked. He should destroy tech/metal/robot champs, but his magnetized AAR isn’t very strong or reliable. His bleed on special 1 is fine, but it doesn’t proc often enough. At 55%, it seems like bleeds proc at a much lower rate. And while doing energy damage as his base attack is great for niche encounters, his attack, crit rate, and crit attack rating are all underwhelming. His heal block on sp2 and armor break on sp3 are decent, but are way too short to matter in today’s meta (8 sec armor break after a sp3, 10 second heal block on sp2).
As the proud owner of a 6* magneto, I can say with certainty that Hulkbuster is the only other champ in the basic 6* pool I would have been as disappointed in pulling. At least DPX has reliable bleeds on his special attacks. Magneto and HB are duds.
While I appreciate the devs looking at usage statistics to determine champion reworks (which in and of themselves are greatly appreciated), it would have been really awesome to have allowed the community to vote for the potential candidates in a write-in format. As OP said, most of the recent buff candidates have at least some redeeming quality. But these two are just bad, especially considering who/what they are.
Magneto is one of the most interesting, powerful characters in the marvel universe/mcu. And Hulkbuster is an Iron Man suit that iron man (playboy/billionaire/philanthropist/genius Tony Stark!) wears over his regular armor to fight the Incredible Hulk, the strongest there is. They should be cool champs, & fun to play. As they are, they are just blah.
The idea that players all agree on what's best, or even know for sure when they agree, is pretty amusing. You can only believe this if you haven't actually seen it from the other side. I've discussed the weaknesses of datamining in depth many times, but for all its flaws opinion polls are far worse. I would rather play the game the developers would make blindfolded than the game the forums would generate by committee.
Also, I'm not sure if you really believe any of that, or just trying to start an argument, because it is so blatantly obvious that champions that deal more damage relative to the damage they take are intrinsically performing better. The *definition* of performing better for most players is kill quickly while not dying.
* That's incredibly vague. The champions that are "performing statistically better, such as Magneto and Juggernaut, are often found in permanent content. For example, 4.2.6 Magneto is on a node that gives him +1% HP every second. That node rarely appears anywhere else and would give basically any defender a ludicrous advantage. The same is true for Juggernaut/Rhino who are always put on unique and ridiculous nodes. They're also both in RoL. So these things would skew the data.
* Now OML and Venompool, as far as I can remember, rarely show up in weird nodes. So them performing statistically worst would make sense. However, this doesn't mean their "base versions" are better.
The thing about not believing statements about datamining is that since they are unlikely to be able to sit down and discuss the raw data with you, if you choose to not believe them then either they are lying in which case they will simply ignore you, or they are telling the truth in which case they have no choice but to ignore you. And even though there are a lot of ways for datamined metrics to be misleading, straight up simply not believing them gives the discussion nowhere to go. That's no different than me telling you that one of your anecdotes is impossible. If you're lying you're going to double down, and if you're telling the truth your only conclusion is that I'm an idiot, because nothing can be impossible that you actually saw with your own two eyes.
When a champion consistently shows up at the bottom of too many of those lists without a reasonable explanation (for example, if the champ was just released last week, the data for that champ will be artificially lower than it will eventually become), that's probably when they get added to the list of potential targets to buff.
(And it is often the source of great player confusion. Sometimes apparently overwhelming combat advantages are allowed to exist in some games for what seems to be no reason, but the reason they exist is because they don't translate into actual net advantages in rewards. For example, suppose a champ existed that had an ability where if you performed some specific sequence of moves absolutely perfectly the target just dies. That would be a huge combat advantage in theory. But suppose the devs datamined the game and discovered that on average most players using that champion were actually taking longer to complete event maps, maybe because the tactic was extremely difficult to pull off and players just kept trying. The datamining might suggest that this huge combat advantage wasn't translating into actual player reward benefits, which might be a point in its favor to remain in the game even if there were tons of Youtube videos showing how "OP" it was).
Then there's the inside ball. Every game developer has that thing they would like to change. And every game developer will tell you that there's generally two ways to get it changed. One: find a metric everyone agrees is reasonable then prove the thing you want to change fails the metric quantitatively. Two: try to convince everyone else you're right by arguing with them until all of them say you win.
Quantitative metrics are like referees in that regard. No one thinks they are always right, many think they are almost always wrong, but without them there's just chaos. Without them developers would just be arguing with each other constantly and never actually creating any content.
This topic gets me a bit frustrated because my 6* champs are so bad that I never use any of the 8 that I have. It's frustrating when all of your buffs are happening to champs that aren't in the 6* pool. It's high time that the pool of 6* champs got a buff because it is SO bad.
One of the most hilarious questions I keep seeing, not just on this forum but practically every game forum I've been on, is "don't the devs play this game, or any game?' Yes, yes they do. Professionals though they are, they are just as good at knowing how everyone playing the game behaves and sees the game as, well, any other game player you know. Which is to say: not very.
In some games the developers have a responsibility to be on the forums. In some games they are actually banned from participating on the forums. Most games make it optional. Wanna take a guess as to what percentage of game developers agree to participate on game forums when given the choice? I don't know precisely, but I can tell you how many digits are in that percentage, and it isn't two. And believe me: that's an informed decision.
The question people should be asking isn't why their datamining is so wrong, it should be why my intuition doesn't match the actual data. That's a learning experience that directly leads to better understanding game development, and how to talk to game developers. Everyone I know whose opinion about gaming I give any value to at all can ask that question of themselves honestly.
For example, "most people" and by that I mean most people on the forums, think Stark Enhanced Spiderman is a top tier champion. But I would bet that he isn't one of the top performing champions in the game in actual fact when played by actual players. That's because he has a high skill level threshold. You need to know how he works - and most players do not read descriptions or bother to learn or bother to remember how all the champions work. You need to build poise charges. Remember that many if not most players have to be taught to evade and told to take the dexterity mastery (that was one of the reasons for the mastery swaps made not long ago). You have to not get hit too often or you lose your increased crit and can even die because he's such a glass cannon.
Conversely, consider everyone's favorite semantic punching bag, Cyclops. It is actually easy to see how his effectiveness in the game would be far higher than most people give him credit for. He's easy to play. He has armor break. He has unblockable attacks. For a huge swath of the players in the game I would bet Cyclops generates better results than Sparky, if for no other reason than Cyclops doesn't encourage players to take dangerous risks like Sparky does.
If you want to argue that we shouldn't judge champions based on how everyone does, but rather how the top players use them or how players with a certain skill level does with them or whatever, that's all debatable. The problem is that debate has no end to it. It is a matter of judgment, not fact.