Why are so many cool champions designed as "defenders" and given minimal attack power?

This is a question I've genuinely had for a while. We have some big names who I'm willing to bet so many people would love to play on attack vs place on defense if they just had some more potential on attack! Take Korg, IMIW, Ebony maw, Annihilus, and so many more! These champions you wouldn't think of as being of the defensive archetype, yet they are! These are some fan favourite characters that you guys have on purpose designed to be defenders which means that not many people end up using them on their attacking roster! More recently, we have Nova who has been awaited by so many of us for years now and guess what? He's a defender! Why can't you guys design some of the champions we don't really care as much about as defenders instead of these fan favorites? Take characters like Ghost, a minor ant man villain that turned out to be game breakingly good offensively! Why couldn't IMIW, the latest and greatest iteration of Iron man we've seen in the game take her place as a godly attacker, and her his as a godly defender? Make the characters we aren't as hyped about defenders, let the characters that all of us have been asking for be attackers!

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Felganos

You completely lost me after saying imiw is a defensive champ. Most people figured him out already and only not understanding his mechanics and ai-behavior make him a hard defender.

And not only that, at this point many people also understood his offensive potential.

Imiw is a way better offensive champ than defensive champ is what I'm trying to say.

Now, I agree with you but I less mean the specifics of it more what it represents. You have this character who is so popular and this is probably the last rendition oh him we're going to get and kabam decided to design him as a defensive champ in opposed to offense. Nowadays, he's easy to counter but back in his first few months, he was the star studded defender. As for his plasma damage, it takes quite a bit of ramp up and you either need the stealth spidey synergy or very aggressive play to get it up, but the damage it pretty damn nice

Felganos

You completely lost me after saying imiw is a defensive champ. Most people figured him out already and only not understanding his mechanics and ai-behavior make him a hard defender.

And not only that, at this point many people also understood his offensive potential.

Imiw is a way better offensive champ than defensive champ is what I'm trying to say.

That and he's terrible in shorter fights, you need at least to be up against an opponent that can take two special 3's worth of damage before his damage gets decent

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solopolo

You completely lost me after saying imiw is a defensive champ. Most people figured him out already and only not understanding his mechanics and ai-behavior make him a hard defender.

And not only that, at this point many people also understood his offensive potential.

Imiw is a way better offensive champ than defensive champ is what I'm trying to say.
Now, I agree with you but I less mean the specifics of it more what it represents. You have this character who is so popular and this is probably the last rendition oh him we're going to get and kabam decided to design him as a defensive champ in opposed to offense. Nowadays, he's easy to counter but back in his first few months, he was the star studded defender. As for his plasma damage, it takes quite a bit of ramp up and you either need the stealth spidey synergy or very aggressive play to get it up, but the damage it pretty damn nice

IMIW is a utility champ. Not having massive damage doesn't mean a champ isn't good as an attacker.

It's a lot easier to not know how to counter a champ than it is to know how to use a champ to full potential. On release, people were a lot less familiar with him in general, which is why he was primarily a defender and such a good defender. Now, people have figured him and his offensive capabilities out.

Felganos

You completely lost me after saying imiw is a defensive champ. Most people figured him out already and only not understanding his mechanics and ai-behavior make him a hard defender.

And not only that, at this point many people also understood his offensive potential.

Imiw is a way better offensive champ than defensive champ is what I'm trying to say.
That and he's terrible in shorter fights, you need at least to be up against an opponent that can take two special 3's worth of damage before his damage gets decent
I mean... He's a utility champ. He's a power control monster. "Offensive champ" does not simply equal "big damage numbers".

This game is a lot less black and white than you seem to believe.

Let's look at it from the opposite side. How about a damage beast like hyperion. He can be an absolute pain on the right nodes without a proper counter. Does that mean hyperion is a defensive champ?

I was actually going to add something like this on after I took a shower but I will now; I think the best thing kabam could be doing is adding champions who all bring something to the table offensively, but have some sort of quirky ability that when combined with a certain node on defense, make them a good defender. This would make it so every champ is viable on offense, though some may not be as strong, all will feel satisfying to play utility wise, and damage wise.

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Bigbowlr

They make defensive champs more because making offense based champs just gets them nerfed a few months later. Kabam can make a defender that's unfun and stupid and wont change it, but if a champ does 3 more damage then it's supposed to theyll fix that in a minute.

Mirage_Turtle

You completely lost me after saying imiw is a defensive champ. Most people figured him out already and only not understanding his mechanics and ai-behavior make him a hard defender.

And not only that, at this point many people also understood his offensive potential.

Imiw is a way better offensive champ than defensive champ is what I'm trying to say.
He is made for defense. Do you use him on attack phase?

When they introduced Psychic Thorns to AW, I was assigned that path and he was my go-to. I played in Tier 2-3.

My personal feelings are that IMIW is an underrated attacker. He has a LOT going for him. He won't have massive damage right off the bat, but he does have a lot of other stuff going on:

Unblockable L1
Damage over time in the form of Shock and Incinerate Debuffs
Heal Block
Armor Break
Damage over time passive (Plasma) that gets around Debuff-immunities is stackable and can last indefinitely
Anti-evasion attacks
Anti-contact attacks (great for Korg, Electro, Thorns, etc.)
A good mix of physical and energy damage
Power Control
Bleed immunity
Suicide-friendly
VERY high block proficiency. Not quite as high as Cap IW, but much higher than most champs.

For me, he has too much going for him for me to write him off as simply a defensive champ. Others may not like him, but I'm a fan.

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Graydrox

Deleted my comment

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Superchampion_

If Disney reboots X-Men into the mcu, which they should, we are gonna get a lot of cool new versions of those characters in the game and it's gonna be awesome.

I wouldn’t mind new mutants but I’d rather they just buff existing mutants like dpx, magneto, cable and the all powerful cyclops

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SidDDragon

What the... 11 people never played imiw it seems lmao.

Exactly... IMIW was my second 4/55 and he helped me so much..u guys have listed his abilities but people are too ignorant to someone with differing opinions..i really liked the shoutout to his utility in psychic thorns..i used him on the same path...mllll and I finished the fights at yellow bar...not to mention him being one of the best counters to v3 final korg boss

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Felganos

I think this is devolving into reasons IMIW is good lmao. I agree, he does have some solid utility on offense but the reason I started this in the first place was because I think it's stupid that some of the most hyped characters in this game have either been letdowns, or been designed as defenders in opposed to attackers. Despite that, some champions that have no hype and that barely anyone knows, have been specifically tuned to be a very high ranking attacker. All I/We (last time I assumed I spoke for the player base in my squirrel store post I got a lot of backlash lmao), are asking for is that our favorite characters in the comics and movies actually be interesting and good characters to play that bring new things to the table instead of them either being underwhelming, or getting slapped straight on to defense because of their lack of offensive utility/damage.

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_I_

isn't the answer obvious? kabam wants players to buy revives boosts so they put more n more defenders out in the market so that ppl die more n more spend more n more. I remember in one war the difference in win n loss was hair like thin. so leader bought units to clinch the match for us.

as for imiw, well He is an absolute all-rounder! I love to use him as attack champ against aggressive champs.

SheDroveMeHere

I think this is devolving into reasons IMIW is good lmao. I agree, he does have some solid utility on offense but the reason I started this in the first place was because I think it's stupid that some of the most hyped characters in this game have either been letdowns, or been designed as defenders in opposed to attackers. Despite that, some champions that have no hype and that barely anyone knows, have been specifically tuned to be a very high ranking attacker. All I/We (last time I assumed I spoke for the player base in my squirrel store post I got a lot of backlash lmao), are asking for is that our favorite characters in the comics and movies actually be interesting and good characters to play that bring new things to the table instead of them either being underwhelming, or getting slapped straight on to defense because of their lack of offensive utility/damage.
Dude, not at all. It's not about imiw being good, it's about him being good on offense, which is perfectly in line with your initial point of him amongst other champs being designed as a defensive champ.

That is not the case as me and others have already explained.

Again, after you've figured out his mechanics and his ai-behavior he's an absolute joke on defense. He's ridiculously easy to heavy-counter and you can bait his sp1 from the other side of the screen by just standing there or idle walking towards him.

I'd argue that at this point he's actually quite horrible on defense, since in most cases any kill he can produce is simply a result to the opponent not fully understanding him. What some people find hard about fighting him is not based on his innate defensive abilities, but rather them paired with his unique ai-behavior, which you can use to your own advantage.

Now everything that's left are his offensive capabilities. So, you can say you don't like him offensively, but saying he's more of a defensive champ is simply wrong lol.

You're really trying to sell us on this narrative that he's not good on defense. The fact is that even if you know his mechanics, he's still a tank unless you have a true strike opponent to take against him, which means that you're going to be baiting and dashing back and forth a ton while you try and whittle him down giving you plenty of opportunities to mess up. That's the key, he take a long series of very specific countering to get him down and he's very unforgiving if you miss a dodge, or time your heavy late. Lots of opportunities to screw up.

He's one of the more reliable defenders in war across the board, especially compared to a champ like Thing that has only one simple mechanic to worry about.

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DNA3000

last time I assumed I spoke for the player base in my squirrel store post I got a lot of backlash lmao

And yet.

Tehsigzorz

Hes horrible on defense? Damn I thought when someone gets their first rank 5 they would be decently knowledgable about the game

DNA3000

I think this is devolving into reasons IMIW is good lmao. I agree, he does have some solid utility on offense but the reason I started this in the first place was because I think it's stupid that some of the most hyped characters in this game have either been letdowns, or been designed as defenders in opposed to attackers. Despite that, some champions that have no hype and that barely anyone knows, have been specifically tuned to be a very high ranking attacker. All I/We (last time I assumed I spoke for the player base in my squirrel store post I got a lot of backlash lmao), are asking for is that our favorite characters in the comics and movies actually be interesting and good characters to play that bring new things to the table instead of them either being underwhelming, or getting slapped straight on to defense because of their lack of offensive utility/damage.
Dude, not at all. It's not about imiw being good, it's about him being good on offense, which is perfectly in line with your initial point of him amongst other champs being designed as a defensive champ.

That is not the case as me and others have already explained.

Actually, I'm trying to think of a champ that is universally good on defense at all tiers and also universally bad on attack across all parts of the game, and I'm coming up empty. Even Korg can be used on offense (I've used him in a second account in single player content where his ability to tank SP3 repeatedly came in handy), Dormammu has players who champion his power control, MODOK has probably cheesed more content than Domino, and people have even pushed Invisible Woman into respectable damage when played well.

The only champs I can think of that lean almost universally defensive in utility are just not very good at all either way. Ebony Maw is not a particularly good attacker, but he's probably not a very good defender either outside of low tiers where people have no experience fighting him, a situation similar to IMIW. I haven't been afraid of IMIW for a very long time. I'm way more worried about Killmonger, a champ that happens to be strong on both offense and defense.

Meanwhile the number of champs that many players *claim* are poor attackers but actually have very strong utility on offense is high enough - Hood, for example - that I'm generally not impressed by claims that Kabam makes too many champs that are not useful on offense.

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