Bringer of Death 1--Psylocke Synergy Review
StevieManWonder
Member Posts: 5,019 ★★★★★
Most of you know that I have a 6r3 Psylocke that I love except for her damage output. Luckily, Apoc has a synergy that is supposed to greatly increase her crit rating and her damage, so I really wanted to get him as at least a five star to beef up my favorite champ.
Well, I went against my better judgement and bought both the Cavalier Early Access bundles for Apoc. 100 dollars down the drain for an awakening of my five star Juggernaut and a new 3 star Prof X. Ratfish. So I went against my better, better judgement and bought both the Grandmaster Early Access bundles. 60 dollars to add another 20 sigs on Ant-Man and a shiny new four star Apocalpyse. Great! I can't take him into Act 6 to try out the Psylocke synergy, obviously, so I took them into Cav EQ. This synergy is...disappointing.
Granted, my Psylocke skills are a little rusty and I was practicing in the Kinetic Transference quest (which isn't a good node for Psylocke), but I was still very disappointed in the damage output and I immensely regret spending 160 dollars to try and get this synergy. On the bright side, I know now that it's not worth dropping my units on Cav crystals or using my Cyber Weekend units on his crystals like I was planning on.
Let's break down why I found this synergy so lackluster.
First off, Backdraft Intercepting, which is absolute key to Psylocke play, seems to either be broken or has changed and I can no longer reliably backdraft without my intercept getting intercepted, which was never the case when I used to play Psylocke regularly. If Backdraft Intercept has been changed, Psylocke is useless and I would like rank-down tickets.
Secondly, her damage just isn't there, even with the 50% attack boost and additional crit rating. I have 5/65s and 4/55s that can hit harder than Psylocke, even when the opponent is at 0 power. I expected this synergy to rectify her meager damage output, but it didn't.
Thirdly, I'm not sure that the extra 5% crit rating per Psi-Charge is working correctly, at 20 Psi-Charges, Psylocke should be citing every single hit and she wasn't. Actually, I just checked the synergy right now and this is what it reads: "Bringer of Death 1-- Psylocke: Basic Attacks have a 30% chance to grant a psi-charge." That's it. It doesn't say anything about the psi-charges granting additional crit rating.
Overall, I'm incredibly disappointed by this synergy and regret spending money on it greatly.
Well, I went against my better judgement and bought both the Cavalier Early Access bundles for Apoc. 100 dollars down the drain for an awakening of my five star Juggernaut and a new 3 star Prof X. Ratfish. So I went against my better, better judgement and bought both the Grandmaster Early Access bundles. 60 dollars to add another 20 sigs on Ant-Man and a shiny new four star Apocalpyse. Great! I can't take him into Act 6 to try out the Psylocke synergy, obviously, so I took them into Cav EQ. This synergy is...disappointing.
Granted, my Psylocke skills are a little rusty and I was practicing in the Kinetic Transference quest (which isn't a good node for Psylocke), but I was still very disappointed in the damage output and I immensely regret spending 160 dollars to try and get this synergy. On the bright side, I know now that it's not worth dropping my units on Cav crystals or using my Cyber Weekend units on his crystals like I was planning on.
Let's break down why I found this synergy so lackluster.
First off, Backdraft Intercepting, which is absolute key to Psylocke play, seems to either be broken or has changed and I can no longer reliably backdraft without my intercept getting intercepted, which was never the case when I used to play Psylocke regularly. If Backdraft Intercept has been changed, Psylocke is useless and I would like rank-down tickets.
Secondly, her damage just isn't there, even with the 50% attack boost and additional crit rating. I have 5/65s and 4/55s that can hit harder than Psylocke, even when the opponent is at 0 power. I expected this synergy to rectify her meager damage output, but it didn't.
Thirdly, I'm not sure that the extra 5% crit rating per Psi-Charge is working correctly, at 20 Psi-Charges, Psylocke should be citing every single hit and she wasn't. Actually, I just checked the synergy right now and this is what it reads: "Bringer of Death 1-- Psylocke: Basic Attacks have a 30% chance to grant a psi-charge." That's it. It doesn't say anything about the psi-charges granting additional crit rating.
Overall, I'm incredibly disappointed by this synergy and regret spending money on it greatly.
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Comments
Well on the bright side, thanks for testing it out for all of us and giving us your opinion as you are the owner of a 6r3 Psylocke.
To speak directly to this point the crit rating is heavily affected by diminishing returns. Although you'll never reach a 100% crit rate I found my 6* in testing to reach a very good amount of crit rate. The text also wasn't updated to start but it has been updated and reads correctly now.
I tested her as a 6* In the Content Creator Beta, and honestly found her a ton more enjoyable compared to my 6* r3 testing before without. It may not feel like that much, and she is certainly not as strong as other 6* r3s, this felt like a massive increase for her. LoL OML down in 320 hits for me. ~7k Mediums, ~5k light crits, and a 50k Special 2. Not incredible but no slouch either I think. Once I got to 30-40 charges (which was relatively easy with the 30% on a basic hit), I found her crit rate to be really good. I also did fine backdrafting with Psylocke took me a bit to get back into the rhythm of but once I did it worked as normal. Interested to hear your thoughts on my testing, mad props to you having her r3 on Live!
You can test this on Carnage by bringing a team of 4 Carnages and a Venom then building up all precision buffs, the difference between 2-3 and max precisions isn’t noticeable. For Psylocke to do some real damage shes needs an attack boost or prowess since cruelty is also subject to diminishing returns. Carnage only needs 2 cruelty’s before they become inefficient according to this Reddit post. Just some food for thought.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ContestOfChampions/comments/ikgk52/carnages_best_damage_build_and_rotation/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I did bring Psylocke to sig 200, which is probably helping her crit damage quite a bit (but there is no change in the damage from sig 1-200). I honestly haven't tried the synergy too much on live with Psylocke at r1 but was planning on it, in general I personally haven't noticed any change in backdraft and I was doing it plenty in stuff like Summoner Showdown. I think for sure Psylocke could use a bit more, but personally I am really happy to see her get a bonus for keeping alot of Psi-charges up, in addition to the raw damage increase.
The synergy seems negligible because it almost is. She has a pretty high crit rate to start on her base kit. In ideal scenario with opponent at zero power you are only seeing a 6% increase in crit rate with Apoc synergy.
With kabam I can safely bet that they just add 5% of her crit rate in numeric form, wich doesn't really says anything, let it be 1000. Then you have +50 crit rate, and then they somehow (only they know how, I've never seen any specific formula and would appreciate anyone showing it) convert it to % crit rate. This conversion is not linear, so if 1000 crit rate is equal to 30%, with 2000 crit rate you may have 40% instead of 60%.
Personally I dislike that system a lot, as player can't say, how much he gets when he brings some champ for crit rate synergy. Same would go for other base parameters probably