Which mutant is priority rank 4 option?
GMAX77
Member Posts: 512 ★★★
I recently awakened my rank 3 Havok . I also have been preparing to rank my Archangel. I'm a bit torn. They will both eventually get upgraded, but for the moment I would like some perspectives from the community on who to prioritize. I do not have Apocalypse so the horseman synergy for AA is out. My current top mutant is rank 5 awakened Colossus. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Which mutant is priority rank 4 option? 25 votes
Havok
0%
Archangel
100%
25 votes
0
Comments
I should have mentioned that Archangel is dupped at sig 60.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. I am a couple of T1 alphas away and I'll be looking to take AA up next level up event. Appreciate the time taken to share with me.
With AA the first thing you wanna do is check your opponents immunity, whether its base or node. His damage comes from applying bleeds, poisons and neurotoxins. Neuros are passive effects and are a bleed&poison combined.
If they are not immune to bleed or poison, then parry- heavy - watch them die while you smile gleefully. As you get used to using him, it becomes easier to punish heavies with your own to save block damage/against stun immune.
If poison immune he can still put in work, just takes longer. He can't apply neuros to poison immune champs.
If bleed immune use someone else. He can only apply poisons to bleed immune via sp3 but if you're willing for a looooong slow fight, why not.
If facing someone who can purify posions eg Red Hulk you can apply neuro via sp3. Try not to parry though as purified posions give rhulk more heat charges and when he has multiple bleeds, AA has a high chance to poison on block. Intercept only.
If they're double immune then really really don't use him it's gonna be a boring boring long fight with a bunch of grey immunes popping up every half second. I mean, if you're crazy and wanna take him against Darkhawk, by all means go for it. It'll be loooooong so I don't see why you would but it's not like you can't. There are a few matchups he should absolutely not be taken to - Abomination(he bleeds, you get poison), Cable (you die from degen) and Omega Red (you make him bleed, he gets death field, you die from spores)
Now about his damage, the neurotoxin damage is crazy. He's great for 5.3 with the attack reduction due to his damage output, the fights don't seem as long. He also works similarly in v3. As his playstyle is primarily parry-heavy and he is a medium champ, in v2 his heavy won't be glanced.
Damage isn't all the neurotoxins do on a duped AA though. It gets better.
With enough neuros depending on sig level he can shut down so much at 100% AAR, both defensive and offensive abilities and even some nodes like no retreat, masochism, energy adoptions, caltrops, fight or flight, spite, unblockable finale, powerful from afar, biohazard and some less significant ones like special lock 1/2. I'm sure there are more but I don't know all he can shut down. Yet.
Magik's limbo doesn't proc, Voids debuffs can fail, no damage back from Electro, Punisher/Hela's indestructible doesn't trigger, DP's power gain, Modok's autoblock, Mojo's strange Mojo stuff, Mr Fantastic's annoying evade and stuff (actually anyone's evade Ronin's, Black Widow's, Hit Monkey's) but sadly also prevents sp1 debuffs so no willpower healing, spiderverse evades - if buffet is there, Venom isn't reliable, AA is - he can turn buffet off too. I've recently just learnt he can shut off the debuff transfer from Mr Sinister's sp1. He can turn the most annoying champ into just a blob with high health and attack. Looking at you, Mojo.
It can save you when you mess up and get clipped too. For example if you fail on evading Yellowjacket's sp1, if he has 3 neuros, you don't get the power sting. He can also cause bleeds and other debuffs to fail to apply so you'd just take damage from the hits.
Note: make sure either there is no Force of Will node (immunity to AAR) or the champ themselves aren't immune to it. Longshot is a strange one. He is immune to AAR except from debuffs. Neuros are passive, so they don't count, but since Longshot can be bled and posioned, well RIP Longshot. Kingpin and Mordo and AA himself are also immune to AAR. You can neuro another AA to death you can't shut down his nodes etc. While usually that isn't much of a problem, but if you have an AA on biohazard, and you try and use your own, you'll die.
His immunity to AAR is useful though. He can parry Black Widow without any problems, he works against Red Magneto despite him being #Metal, he can take on Electra with suicides. Basically any champ that reduces ability accuracy, he's fine for.
I'm still a chapter away but I'm wondering if he'd be good for 6.2.5 Strength in Numbers.
Note 2: Don't use AA for Guardian unless he's on a poison immune node. You'll get shocked when Guardian gets a neuro. Unless your AA is unduped.
He is good for lifecycle too, the bleed and poison are DoT but neuros are passive and still do damage. When at low health, parry, heavy to knockdown then the neuros kill them at 1% health. Be careful here though, he needs to be able to bleed and poison the opponent since they don't take damage from debuffs. Unless there's bleed vulnerability like the Gwenpool in this month's EQ.
Bypasses Safeguard with DoT, he's good for Diss Track but careful not to turn all your debuffs into passive neuros. He works better for poison immune here with just bleeds but he works. Just less heavies.
Also great for bleed, posion vulnerability since you'll be applying a lot of those.
On the other hand, he also doesn't really care about bleed/posion resistance provided that they do not have an immunity to the other, since he converts them to passive effects. The resistor node doesn't really effect him either since it doesn't affect his DoT.
Duped sig 1 = shuts down regen with 1 neuro. Even undupe, keep up posion and they reduce healing by 30%. With despair mastery the amount of debuffs he applies should shut off regen anyway.
Neuros expiry can give you an opening to push them to another special if thats easiet to evade or transfer bane as they stun on expiry but sometimes I've been trying to bait sp and they get stunned and bane is about to be transferred so don't push them to nearly an sp3 and bait.
With some practise you can use him against Thing to control rock stacks, but be prepared for a long fight, and I wouldn't recommend it but it can be done.
His heavy timed right can be used against Mordos astral evade even though mordo is immune to AAR.
He's a mutant champ and can place bleeds on Elsa Bloodstone, she's a piece of cake with him.
He doesn't need his special attacks. So if you're on a Plagued Mind or Power Struggle node, he doesn't care. He doesn't need them. I'm not sure if he can turn off Plagued Mind. I don't think so.
Note 3: When facing a Matador node, his AAR can prevent you gaining any power at all.
He also doesn't rely on synergies so only needs one spot on the team. He can work with or without suicides, while he has no immunity himself, except to AAR (unless he's a horseman !!! I NEED APOCALYPSE!) he doesn't rely on his specials to access his damage and utility. Often he might not be the best choice for the boss but he sure can clear the path leaving you with 4 other close to full health champs for your boss kill.
He was my first 5/65 before Domino, Cap IW, Sunspot and I absolutely love him, but like most champs he has his weaknesses. There's probably a lot more that I've missed but hope it helps.
Thanks a ton for the information!