Archangel appreciation thread
The reason I created this is because I don't see this guy being talked about a lot, lately. I really don't see the reason why he'd suddenly become underrated for no reason. I see rank up and/or awakening posts with archangel in them, and I usually see people going for the other options.
In comparison to others in his class, I'd rate archangel as top 3 without a doubt. The guy is almost too valuable.
If the opponent can bleed and be poisoned; in 99% of scenarios, there is no hope for their survival.
Champs that are immune to either one or both of AA's debuffs only count for about 15% of the population.
Content-wise, archangel is one of the best for path clearing, utility and versatility. An awakened archangel vs. a non-immune opponent is as perfect a scenario as you can think of in mcoc. A few neuros, and the opponent has no ability accuracy. This affects ALL ability accuracy triggers, whether offensive, defensive or otherwise. All it it is gone when archangel has a good number of neuros. Sometimes, it only takes as little as one heavy attack, and you're in the zone! In addition to that, you've got his super easy heal block. As long as there's a neuro on the opponent, there is no healing for them. Aggression: Regen, buffet, masochism, arc overload, and other Regen nodes are simply a joke for an awakened archangel.
Archangel still remains the most valuable Champ for act 5 exploration, imo. In act 6, he's an absolute top option as well. He shuts down a good number of the annoying global nodes like no retreat, lifecycle, backblast, etc. There's a lot of nicheness in act 6 which AA simply doesn't care about.
As for variants, he can do all of them save variant 5. Even in variant 3 with the attack reduction, his neuros do so much damage to end fights with insane speed! In labyrinth, he isn't the best due to limber, but with the white Magneto synergy, I see him being viable.
In abyss, I'm not sure what to say in that regard, as I'm not quite close to that content level yet lol.
One reason I feel he's falling behind a bit is because he isn't available as a 6* in the basic pool. Once he is, I can see people's opinions turning around fast.
There's a lot more to say about him. He's got that sweet AAR immunity (bugged against glancing), which makes him great against champs like OG black widow, massacre, the collector, etc. Due to his unique abilities, you almost never need to worry about running out of neuros. His unique playstyle makes him amazing with or without suicides. His non-reliance on specials allows him to bypass nodes, setups or champs that would punish throwing them.
My rank 5 5* archangel has put in a lot of work for me. I actually use him over my most used champs like Ghost, G2099, Void, Claire, spelthy, etc. in matchups where the opponent doesn't have immunities.
Utility, insane DoT, efficiency, speed, reliability, etc. Archangel is extremely useful in today's content even though he's been around for about 3+ years. His value still holds, and he continues to shine more and more as content progresses.
(Btw, he isn't super reliant on awakening either. He's still got that insane speed without it. However, he's worth a generic imo, and he doesn't need too many sigs which is always nice to see in a champ.)
I'd love to see your thoughts below!
