**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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Invisible Woman: Not an appreciation thread
UnidentifiedCreature
Posts: 589 ★★★
Invisible Woman can deal some great damage and is fun to play. She can be very effective for certain scenarios, but the chances of you encountering those scenarios will decrease the closer you are to being an Endgame player. Allow me to explain.
Let's talk about her abilities first. There's something special about Invisible Woman- she can finish fights with 100% health even with the suicide masteries. However, that is possible only if you use the intended playstyle for Invisible Woman. That playsyle being-
Intercepting the enemy's attacks till you get to the SP3, fire it off, and then, keep doing the same till you get to the SP2, fire that off, and to maximize the damage you get from the passive fury, build up to till you get to the SP1, and finally fire that one off.
You could say that she's a combination of Quake and Ghost, in the sense that she relies on evading a lot, and that most of her damage output comes from the SP2. And, let's not forget, she's tricky to play.
Let's get back to her rotation now. Let's just ignore that some of the shorter healthpools in the game won't even survive till you get to the SP1, and focus on her survivability, aka, defensive capabilities. I mentioned earlier that can she finish fights with 100% health even with the suicide masteries. Can't say that about many characters, can you? But how is this possible? She doesn't have immunities, and she can't even shrugg off debuffs. Well, it's due to her forcefield. It reduces damage taken from all sources, even the suicide masteries. So, if you have willpower active, you will be taking much less damage than usual, and the healing you get via willpower would be more than enough to keep you at 100% health. There is a crucial flaw here, but I'll address it later. All I'm gonna say for now is that she still isn't the best champion to run suicides with, or to take on debuff nodes with, despite this mechanic of hers.
The 'intended playstyle' that I mentioned only requires you to intercept, therefore completely removing blocking, and therefore, block damage from the picture. Also, if you mess up with the intercepts, don't worry, because if you had dodged an attack before via the dexterity mastery, you won't get hit, as the Invisibility would protect you for 2 seconds. And if you aren't invisible when you get hit, the forcefield absorbs almost all the damage that she takes from all sources, so her forcefield will absorb a lot of that damage, which is a mechanic oddly similar to Korg's rock stacks. So, not only was she designed to not take a lot of damage, even if she gets hit, she won't take too much damage.
Now that we've established what her defensive capabilities are, let's talk about her damage output. But first, let's look at how she builds it up. Every time she dodges an attack via the dexterity mastery, she places an indefinite vulnerability debuff on the opponent. She can place a maximum of 50 vulnerabilities on the opponent. These debuffs don't deal any damage to the opponent, but they increase the damage that you deal when attacking the opponent. Invisible Woman also deals a burst of physical damage equal to her attack rating for each debuff on the opponent. Her forcefield also plays a big part in enabling her massive damage output. Her forcefield begins at 100 strength. Whenever you use the SP3, the forcefield gains 100 additional strength, and with her spouse Mr. Fantastic on the team, the forcefield gains 10 strength each time the opponent uses a special attack, but this synergy isn't really necessary. The greater the strength of the forcefield, the bigger the fury you get from the SP2, since the fury scales with the strength of the forcefield. If you flawlessly carry out the rotation that I mentioned, you will dodge so many hits, you will inevitably place 50, or close to 50 vulnerabilities on the opponent by the time you launch the SP3. After that, when you fire off the SP2, the fury will be amplified with the high strength of the forcefield, giving Invisible Woman a pretty high damage boost. On top of that, you have the high number of vulnerabilities that will deal extra damage. Both these aspects combined will end up dealing massive damage.
With the things that I've said, Invisible Woman probably sounds like one of the best, if not the best character in the game. You might be wondering why a lot of people don't consider her to be anywhere near the God tier characters in this game. It's because of one thing only. Because of the elephant in the room. It is, in fact, a gigantic elephant in the room. It's a very abysmal and amusing elephant too. It's that there doesn't seem to be a mention of even the most basic utility in the game in the entirety of her toolkit. Trust me, I checked more times than I should've. Sure, she doesn't take too much damage from any sources while her force field is up, but that isn't even close to compensating for her lack of an ability to ignore evade effects, reduce ability accuracy, stop/reverse regeneration or power gain, or, in simpler words, having nothing that's genuinely valuable.
I'll talk about the drawbacks of not having basic utility later, for now now, let's focus on the crucial flaw that I mentioned- she can't even negate the damage from suicide masteries without it hurting her damage output. Since the forcefield loses some of its strength everytime Invisible Woman takes some damage, unless you're only running double edge, her forcefield will be depleting forever until you KO the opponent. And let's not mention- recoil. Yes, she won't take too much damage from it, but it will weaken the strength of her forcefield. So, having suicides on while using Invisible Woman is more of a detriment than anything. This might be a design flaw, but it might also be something that the devs did intentionally to 'keep her balanced'.
Before we get into the drawbacks of the lack of basic utility in her kit, let me tell you that Invisible Woman can be really frustrating to play. Even if you accidentally block a hit, you will lose some amount of strength of the forcefield, you'd lose the invisibility and you'd lose all the vulnerabilities that you'd placed on the opponent. Now let me tell you how not having even the most basic utility is so bad for Invisible Woman. This frustration is amplified by the lack of utility. Let me give you an example. Suppose, you're fighting an opponent who can evade. For no real reason at all, let's assume that the opponent is Mr. Fantastic. Imagine you've built up a few vulnerabilities on him, and you're trying to build up to a special attack, and he evades you and hits you. For a few milliseconds, your brain might think that she's fine because she didn't take any damage, but right after that, when your eyes fall on the Invisibility timer that's going to expire, you soon realise that you're gonna have to go the tedious rotation once again, and that you can only hope that he doesn't evade and punish a single one of your attacks again. Maybe, if each vulnerability decreased the opponent's ability accuracy, reduced the potency of their regeneration/power gain buffs, allowed her to bypass mechanics like miss and auto block, or, in simple language, if they actually served a purpose other than increasing her damage, she could've been a wildly different character.
Now, let's get to the importance of utility. Imagine you've opened up 2 Science/Mystic dual class crystals hoping for a good science character. If you just pulled Hulk Ragnarok and Invisible Woman, both of them being completely brand new addtions to your roster, which one would you choose? Most players would choose Hulk Ragnarok over Invisible Woman. Memes like 'he thicc' aside, why would the majority of the players choose Hulk Raganarok? His damage is quite underwhelming, I agree, but his utility is fantastic. To explain to you why utility is much more preferred than damage, It's because you can always afford to have a few more hits on your combo meter and to use more specials than usual than not being able to counter an annoying node or an annoying character mechanic. The scenarios that I mentioned right at the beginning were ones in which no utility would be required, quite literally, none at all. The only 'difficult' content which can be described as being one of those scenarios is ROL. Hulk Ragnarok would most likely take 100 hits, or more to KO ROL Winter Soldier than Invisible Woman would, even if he was at a higher rank. Despite that, he's still a more popular rank-up choice.
Speaking of Winter Soldier, he is often called the 'punching bag of MCOC'. Let's assume for a second that that is the case, and that Winter Soldier is a literal punching bag. Invisible Woman, and the multiple other characters like her, would be the 'boxing gloves of MCOC'. Sure, these boxing gloves are really effective against this punching bag, but where else can you use them? This is, in my opinion, Invisible Woman's biggest flaw- her lack of utility. It leaves you with no choice other than to check out her damage numbers in ROL, since you can't use her in other areas of the game.
It's truly a shame that a character with cool animations and a frustrating yet fun rotation, a lot of great abilities, who is also widely loved Marvel character and a member of the Fantastic Four, is often regarded as being a mediocre character, and that too, for good reason...
Let's talk about her abilities first. There's something special about Invisible Woman- she can finish fights with 100% health even with the suicide masteries. However, that is possible only if you use the intended playstyle for Invisible Woman. That playsyle being-
Intercepting the enemy's attacks till you get to the SP3, fire it off, and then, keep doing the same till you get to the SP2, fire that off, and to maximize the damage you get from the passive fury, build up to till you get to the SP1, and finally fire that one off.
You could say that she's a combination of Quake and Ghost, in the sense that she relies on evading a lot, and that most of her damage output comes from the SP2. And, let's not forget, she's tricky to play.
Let's get back to her rotation now. Let's just ignore that some of the shorter healthpools in the game won't even survive till you get to the SP1, and focus on her survivability, aka, defensive capabilities. I mentioned earlier that can she finish fights with 100% health even with the suicide masteries. Can't say that about many characters, can you? But how is this possible? She doesn't have immunities, and she can't even shrugg off debuffs. Well, it's due to her forcefield. It reduces damage taken from all sources, even the suicide masteries. So, if you have willpower active, you will be taking much less damage than usual, and the healing you get via willpower would be more than enough to keep you at 100% health. There is a crucial flaw here, but I'll address it later. All I'm gonna say for now is that she still isn't the best champion to run suicides with, or to take on debuff nodes with, despite this mechanic of hers.
The 'intended playstyle' that I mentioned only requires you to intercept, therefore completely removing blocking, and therefore, block damage from the picture. Also, if you mess up with the intercepts, don't worry, because if you had dodged an attack before via the dexterity mastery, you won't get hit, as the Invisibility would protect you for 2 seconds. And if you aren't invisible when you get hit, the forcefield absorbs almost all the damage that she takes from all sources, so her forcefield will absorb a lot of that damage, which is a mechanic oddly similar to Korg's rock stacks. So, not only was she designed to not take a lot of damage, even if she gets hit, she won't take too much damage.
Now that we've established what her defensive capabilities are, let's talk about her damage output. But first, let's look at how she builds it up. Every time she dodges an attack via the dexterity mastery, she places an indefinite vulnerability debuff on the opponent. She can place a maximum of 50 vulnerabilities on the opponent. These debuffs don't deal any damage to the opponent, but they increase the damage that you deal when attacking the opponent. Invisible Woman also deals a burst of physical damage equal to her attack rating for each debuff on the opponent. Her forcefield also plays a big part in enabling her massive damage output. Her forcefield begins at 100 strength. Whenever you use the SP3, the forcefield gains 100 additional strength, and with her spouse Mr. Fantastic on the team, the forcefield gains 10 strength each time the opponent uses a special attack, but this synergy isn't really necessary. The greater the strength of the forcefield, the bigger the fury you get from the SP2, since the fury scales with the strength of the forcefield. If you flawlessly carry out the rotation that I mentioned, you will dodge so many hits, you will inevitably place 50, or close to 50 vulnerabilities on the opponent by the time you launch the SP3. After that, when you fire off the SP2, the fury will be amplified with the high strength of the forcefield, giving Invisible Woman a pretty high damage boost. On top of that, you have the high number of vulnerabilities that will deal extra damage. Both these aspects combined will end up dealing massive damage.
With the things that I've said, Invisible Woman probably sounds like one of the best, if not the best character in the game. You might be wondering why a lot of people don't consider her to be anywhere near the God tier characters in this game. It's because of one thing only. Because of the elephant in the room. It is, in fact, a gigantic elephant in the room. It's a very abysmal and amusing elephant too. It's that there doesn't seem to be a mention of even the most basic utility in the game in the entirety of her toolkit. Trust me, I checked more times than I should've. Sure, she doesn't take too much damage from any sources while her force field is up, but that isn't even close to compensating for her lack of an ability to ignore evade effects, reduce ability accuracy, stop/reverse regeneration or power gain, or, in simpler words, having nothing that's genuinely valuable.
I'll talk about the drawbacks of not having basic utility later, for now now, let's focus on the crucial flaw that I mentioned- she can't even negate the damage from suicide masteries without it hurting her damage output. Since the forcefield loses some of its strength everytime Invisible Woman takes some damage, unless you're only running double edge, her forcefield will be depleting forever until you KO the opponent. And let's not mention- recoil. Yes, she won't take too much damage from it, but it will weaken the strength of her forcefield. So, having suicides on while using Invisible Woman is more of a detriment than anything. This might be a design flaw, but it might also be something that the devs did intentionally to 'keep her balanced'.
Before we get into the drawbacks of the lack of basic utility in her kit, let me tell you that Invisible Woman can be really frustrating to play. Even if you accidentally block a hit, you will lose some amount of strength of the forcefield, you'd lose the invisibility and you'd lose all the vulnerabilities that you'd placed on the opponent. Now let me tell you how not having even the most basic utility is so bad for Invisible Woman. This frustration is amplified by the lack of utility. Let me give you an example. Suppose, you're fighting an opponent who can evade. For no real reason at all, let's assume that the opponent is Mr. Fantastic. Imagine you've built up a few vulnerabilities on him, and you're trying to build up to a special attack, and he evades you and hits you. For a few milliseconds, your brain might think that she's fine because she didn't take any damage, but right after that, when your eyes fall on the Invisibility timer that's going to expire, you soon realise that you're gonna have to go the tedious rotation once again, and that you can only hope that he doesn't evade and punish a single one of your attacks again. Maybe, if each vulnerability decreased the opponent's ability accuracy, reduced the potency of their regeneration/power gain buffs, allowed her to bypass mechanics like miss and auto block, or, in simple language, if they actually served a purpose other than increasing her damage, she could've been a wildly different character.
Now, let's get to the importance of utility. Imagine you've opened up 2 Science/Mystic dual class crystals hoping for a good science character. If you just pulled Hulk Ragnarok and Invisible Woman, both of them being completely brand new addtions to your roster, which one would you choose? Most players would choose Hulk Ragnarok over Invisible Woman. Memes like 'he thicc' aside, why would the majority of the players choose Hulk Raganarok? His damage is quite underwhelming, I agree, but his utility is fantastic. To explain to you why utility is much more preferred than damage, It's because you can always afford to have a few more hits on your combo meter and to use more specials than usual than not being able to counter an annoying node or an annoying character mechanic. The scenarios that I mentioned right at the beginning were ones in which no utility would be required, quite literally, none at all. The only 'difficult' content which can be described as being one of those scenarios is ROL. Hulk Ragnarok would most likely take 100 hits, or more to KO ROL Winter Soldier than Invisible Woman would, even if he was at a higher rank. Despite that, he's still a more popular rank-up choice.
Speaking of Winter Soldier, he is often called the 'punching bag of MCOC'. Let's assume for a second that that is the case, and that Winter Soldier is a literal punching bag. Invisible Woman, and the multiple other characters like her, would be the 'boxing gloves of MCOC'. Sure, these boxing gloves are really effective against this punching bag, but where else can you use them? This is, in my opinion, Invisible Woman's biggest flaw- her lack of utility. It leaves you with no choice other than to check out her damage numbers in ROL, since you can't use her in other areas of the game.
It's truly a shame that a character with cool animations and a frustrating yet fun rotation, a lot of great abilities, who is also widely loved Marvel character and a member of the Fantastic Four, is often regarded as being a mediocre character, and that too, for good reason...
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Comments
The only thing I don't understand is why I can lose my invisibility if the enemy attacks into me as I am throwing a special. This is mostly a problem when I play her without synergies since I go full intercept mode.
For example: I build up to an SP2, hold block, wait for the enemy to dash in, dash back before my block is hit, and immediately launch an sp2. The enemy will continue to follow up with another attack that hits me even though I am already in my special animation and that cancels my invisibility. It's a bit frustrating, seeing as how that hit wouldn't even matter since I would take no damage.
My invis woman is chilling at r1 lvl1 cuz the invisibility mechanic is more annoying than a safety mechanic. I would honestly prefer to take some hits rather than loose all my vulnerabilities. Although s2 can hit hard I hate how her invisibility disappears if the enemy misses.
She’s also great for nodes that grant regeneration or power for using buffs. You can turn off dexterity mastery, and she can still dodge all attacks. Same for endgame Dormmamu matchups. She can dodge without dexing so no degeneration.
Not to mention, the more you dodge the more damage she deals to where the additional damage can outpace your actually damage for crazy SP2 numbers with the build up of the shield as well.
Outside Thing it’s seems Kabam did a rush job with the rest of the team because they have or had some design flaws that clearly need addressing.
I also don’t understand why they didn’t make her anti evade like Ghost seeing how they both become invisible, seems stingy.
Mr. Fantastic, because of his big number of debuffs, his dependence on heavy attacks and his SP2, and his evade mecahnic, feels like a combination of Stark Spidey and Void, whereas Invisible Woman, as I said in the post, feels like a combination of Ghost and Quake. Out of all the champions that I mentioned, none of them are anywhere near bad. In fact, all of them are considered MCOC gods. But, despite Invisible Woman and Mr. Fantastic sharing some very common traits with them, are nowhere near their power level.