Summoner Sit-Down: DNA3000
SpideyFunko
Member Posts: 21,954 ★★★★★
Hey all! Sorry for the later post today, just had a bit of a long night yesterday. Today’s interview (as you could tell by the title) is with @DNA3000, who’d I’d like to thank for answering these questions.
Favorite champion?
I don't really have favorites, but if I had to pick one probably Venom. Extremely good utility, and actually seems to get more useful as the game evolves rather than growing obsolete over time. Gotta love that.
Worst class?
Circuits and Systems. Man I really hated that class, kept falling asleep in it.
AW or AQ?
AW is a crime against humanity, or would be if actual humans were involved. It is poorly designed, coarsely iterated, runs fundamentally counter to the benefits of alliance integrity on the game, is soul-crushingly nightmarish at times, costs way too much unless you're an expert, and lacks essential vitamins and minerals. So probably AQ.
Should Pumpkin Spice Lattes exist?
Yes. But they should pass a law that anyone who serves it must also simultaneously serve McRibs, even if they are not a McDonald's.
Are Girl Scout cookies good?
I've never had the ones made with real Girl Scouts, so I'm not sure.
Best Champion of 2020?
Of the ones I actually have and can judge, Sorcerer Supreme. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of her, and she adds unique capabilities to my roster. Although I suspect Cosmic Ghost Rider is going to eventually take that spot; I just don't have him at high rank to really say.
Red or Blue?
Yes.
Best Actor/Actress?
That's tough. I've long been a fan of Anthony Hopkins, especially his dialog/monologue delivery. His courtroom speech in Amistad is probably my favorite. There are a lot of actresses whose work I enjoy, although the one that comes to mind now is Amy Adams. I especially liked her performance in Arrival, which I think is the best pure science fiction movie I've seen possibly ever.
How’s your day going?
Fairly busy day today. There's work, there's some trades doing some home improvement work all around me, and I have a questionnaire I need to get cracking on.
Last time you changed your pfp?
In-game? I don't set it, I just let prestige do that, so recently Captain Marvel Movie became my top champ. On the forums, I set that and left it, back when Rogue was my favorite utility champ (back when "lots of utililty" meant something a bit different than it does today).
How much content have you completed?
Completed but not fully explored Act 6. All the Variants completed, most explored. Haven't tackled either Labyrinth or Abyss yet. I mean, I've poked around in the first fight or two of both, but no serious attempts.
What’s your roster look like? (Pics are preferred, but not required)
What got you into MCOC?
My brother. He started playing, I started playing. He moved on, I stuck around.
What’s your most controversial MCOC opinion?
Rewards often tend to be too high.
Why is that opinion that way?
Players want to advance, they want to collect champions, they want to complete content. That's good. If they didn't want things, the game would not be worth playing. But a wise man once said having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. The game is finite, and the faster you get things, the less there is to chase after. The game has to balance wanting and having. However you try, there will always be people for whom the chase is too long for them. I think they get somewhat more say in reward levels than I think is good for the long-term health of the game.
Name a champion you want to see in game, and explain why.
Here's the case I made for Omega Sentinel: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/1495632/#Comment_1495632
What changes do you want to see to MCOC?
Too many to list here. I'd like to see Alliance content be more cooperative. Right now I think AQ and AW break up as many alliances as they keep together if not more, and I think one reason why is that the game doesn't offer a lot of ways for alliance members to help each other, particularly in Alliance content. Linked nodes aside, which I think is contrived, if you mess up in AQ or AW there are very few ways for alliance mates to help you. Instead of stronger players helping weaker ones, stronger players are forced to get rid of weaker players if they want the alliance as a whole to advance, or leave themselves.
What makes content in MCOC fun?
For me, it is when I have to think about a fight, think about my roster, think about what my hands are currently capable of doing, and finding that one combination of champ and tactical play that makes a ridiculously hard fight into a manageable one, and then beating it. When the game lets me do that without a lot of extraneous stuff getting in the way I'm having the most fun. And losing is part of it, because there's no win more enjoyable than the win you get after losing enough times to realize you're not going to be able to just mindlessly bash your way through it.
You can put one thing in MCOC. What is it?
Proper in-game documentation. Of everything.
Name one champion that you feel is underrated by the community.
Rogue. Not that people think Rogue is bad, but I think she's more useful than she gets credit for. If I was going to hand a brand new player one champ to kick start their game play, it would probably be her. She's not hard to learn to play well and she has buff steal and power control and healing and she resists debuffs (reduces duration). That's a very useful combination of abilities. She's not a top tier champ, but Rogue will get you through Act 5 at least, and is useful in general questing, and generally good for lower to mid tier AQ and AW. By the time you outgrow her, you'll probably have a pretty strong roster.
If you could go through any Act again for the first time, which one would you go through and why?
Actually, at some point I want to play through it all again. I've done it a couple times now (at least through Act 5), and at some point I'd like to see what its like to start over again.
What do you hope to accomplish in the following year?
My focus these days is building up 6* roster for Book 2 and beyond. Also to continue to accelerate arena grinding. At some point I hope to tackle the Abyss, but super long strings of super long fights is probably where i am least effective of a player.
Write a couple paragraphs explaining the utility and usability of the character you know the best.
Well, I said if I had to choose a favorite it would be Venom. Venom has a ton of stuff going for him. First, he turns off Spider-person evades permanently and without having to do anything special. You just won't see an evade from Spiderman or Spider-Gwen or any of those, so he's good against all of them. He also gains True Strike and Unblockable specials when the opponent is below 18% health. This means IMIW who goes into non-stop armor up and autoblock when he drops below 15% health basically has his most annoying feature do nothing against Venom. His heavy attack triggers a fairly long duration armor break which is useful against a lot of champs that become easier to kill when armor broken like Emma Frost, Killmonger, Guardian, Warlock, and others. He gains random buffs periodically and at the start of the fight, and one of those possibilities is an armor up. Heavy attacks reroll the last buff gained, so it is almost always possible to get at least one armor up buff. If you don't have one, keep heavy attacking until you do. Which means Venom is a Havok counter. And his SP1 attack has a chance to nullify a buff and heal Venom. So Venom can control fights where the opponent has dangerous buffs like Medusa or The Champion, and Venom can be extremely sustainable when fighting champs that trigger a lot of buffs like Aegon (Aegon is a heal potion ATM to Venom) or when fighting against nodes that trigger a lot of buffs. And he's immune to power drain and power burn from tech champions, so he's pretty good against Warlock and he can just stand there and take specials from Vision (which do no damage separate from power burn).
Venom also really, really, really likes Buff Cornucopia.
The one place where Venom is not as good is in high nullify environments. If his Klyntar buff is nullified this removes a lot of his special abilities. Not to mention that since Venom triggers a lot of buffs, anything that benefits from nullifying buffs will tend to have a field day against Venom. So maybe refrain from using him in those situations.
Any socials you’d like to plug?
Like, in the middle of the forehead? All of them.
Once again, thanks to @DNA3000 for answering these questions! I’ll see you on Friday for DNA’s recommended interviewee! (Thanks to @Thicco_Mode for the idea) Until then, may RNG be ever in your favor.
Spidey
(side note: if you don’t like this, then don’t click on or give feedback to make it better, but don’t call the interviewees trash)
Favorite champion?
I don't really have favorites, but if I had to pick one probably Venom. Extremely good utility, and actually seems to get more useful as the game evolves rather than growing obsolete over time. Gotta love that.
Worst class?
Circuits and Systems. Man I really hated that class, kept falling asleep in it.
AW or AQ?
AW is a crime against humanity, or would be if actual humans were involved. It is poorly designed, coarsely iterated, runs fundamentally counter to the benefits of alliance integrity on the game, is soul-crushingly nightmarish at times, costs way too much unless you're an expert, and lacks essential vitamins and minerals. So probably AQ.
Should Pumpkin Spice Lattes exist?
Yes. But they should pass a law that anyone who serves it must also simultaneously serve McRibs, even if they are not a McDonald's.
Are Girl Scout cookies good?
I've never had the ones made with real Girl Scouts, so I'm not sure.
Best Champion of 2020?
Of the ones I actually have and can judge, Sorcerer Supreme. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of her, and she adds unique capabilities to my roster. Although I suspect Cosmic Ghost Rider is going to eventually take that spot; I just don't have him at high rank to really say.
Red or Blue?
Yes.
Best Actor/Actress?
That's tough. I've long been a fan of Anthony Hopkins, especially his dialog/monologue delivery. His courtroom speech in Amistad is probably my favorite. There are a lot of actresses whose work I enjoy, although the one that comes to mind now is Amy Adams. I especially liked her performance in Arrival, which I think is the best pure science fiction movie I've seen possibly ever.
How’s your day going?
Fairly busy day today. There's work, there's some trades doing some home improvement work all around me, and I have a questionnaire I need to get cracking on.
Last time you changed your pfp?
In-game? I don't set it, I just let prestige do that, so recently Captain Marvel Movie became my top champ. On the forums, I set that and left it, back when Rogue was my favorite utility champ (back when "lots of utililty" meant something a bit different than it does today).
How much content have you completed?
Completed but not fully explored Act 6. All the Variants completed, most explored. Haven't tackled either Labyrinth or Abyss yet. I mean, I've poked around in the first fight or two of both, but no serious attempts.
What’s your roster look like? (Pics are preferred, but not required)
What got you into MCOC?
My brother. He started playing, I started playing. He moved on, I stuck around.
What’s your most controversial MCOC opinion?
Rewards often tend to be too high.
Why is that opinion that way?
Players want to advance, they want to collect champions, they want to complete content. That's good. If they didn't want things, the game would not be worth playing. But a wise man once said having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. The game is finite, and the faster you get things, the less there is to chase after. The game has to balance wanting and having. However you try, there will always be people for whom the chase is too long for them. I think they get somewhat more say in reward levels than I think is good for the long-term health of the game.
Name a champion you want to see in game, and explain why.
Here's the case I made for Omega Sentinel: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/1495632/#Comment_1495632
What changes do you want to see to MCOC?
Too many to list here. I'd like to see Alliance content be more cooperative. Right now I think AQ and AW break up as many alliances as they keep together if not more, and I think one reason why is that the game doesn't offer a lot of ways for alliance members to help each other, particularly in Alliance content. Linked nodes aside, which I think is contrived, if you mess up in AQ or AW there are very few ways for alliance mates to help you. Instead of stronger players helping weaker ones, stronger players are forced to get rid of weaker players if they want the alliance as a whole to advance, or leave themselves.
What makes content in MCOC fun?
For me, it is when I have to think about a fight, think about my roster, think about what my hands are currently capable of doing, and finding that one combination of champ and tactical play that makes a ridiculously hard fight into a manageable one, and then beating it. When the game lets me do that without a lot of extraneous stuff getting in the way I'm having the most fun. And losing is part of it, because there's no win more enjoyable than the win you get after losing enough times to realize you're not going to be able to just mindlessly bash your way through it.
You can put one thing in MCOC. What is it?
Proper in-game documentation. Of everything.
Name one champion that you feel is underrated by the community.
Rogue. Not that people think Rogue is bad, but I think she's more useful than she gets credit for. If I was going to hand a brand new player one champ to kick start their game play, it would probably be her. She's not hard to learn to play well and she has buff steal and power control and healing and she resists debuffs (reduces duration). That's a very useful combination of abilities. She's not a top tier champ, but Rogue will get you through Act 5 at least, and is useful in general questing, and generally good for lower to mid tier AQ and AW. By the time you outgrow her, you'll probably have a pretty strong roster.
If you could go through any Act again for the first time, which one would you go through and why?
Actually, at some point I want to play through it all again. I've done it a couple times now (at least through Act 5), and at some point I'd like to see what its like to start over again.
What do you hope to accomplish in the following year?
My focus these days is building up 6* roster for Book 2 and beyond. Also to continue to accelerate arena grinding. At some point I hope to tackle the Abyss, but super long strings of super long fights is probably where i am least effective of a player.
Write a couple paragraphs explaining the utility and usability of the character you know the best.
Well, I said if I had to choose a favorite it would be Venom. Venom has a ton of stuff going for him. First, he turns off Spider-person evades permanently and without having to do anything special. You just won't see an evade from Spiderman or Spider-Gwen or any of those, so he's good against all of them. He also gains True Strike and Unblockable specials when the opponent is below 18% health. This means IMIW who goes into non-stop armor up and autoblock when he drops below 15% health basically has his most annoying feature do nothing against Venom. His heavy attack triggers a fairly long duration armor break which is useful against a lot of champs that become easier to kill when armor broken like Emma Frost, Killmonger, Guardian, Warlock, and others. He gains random buffs periodically and at the start of the fight, and one of those possibilities is an armor up. Heavy attacks reroll the last buff gained, so it is almost always possible to get at least one armor up buff. If you don't have one, keep heavy attacking until you do. Which means Venom is a Havok counter. And his SP1 attack has a chance to nullify a buff and heal Venom. So Venom can control fights where the opponent has dangerous buffs like Medusa or The Champion, and Venom can be extremely sustainable when fighting champs that trigger a lot of buffs like Aegon (Aegon is a heal potion ATM to Venom) or when fighting against nodes that trigger a lot of buffs. And he's immune to power drain and power burn from tech champions, so he's pretty good against Warlock and he can just stand there and take specials from Vision (which do no damage separate from power burn).
Venom also really, really, really likes Buff Cornucopia.
The one place where Venom is not as good is in high nullify environments. If his Klyntar buff is nullified this removes a lot of his special abilities. Not to mention that since Venom triggers a lot of buffs, anything that benefits from nullifying buffs will tend to have a field day against Venom. So maybe refrain from using him in those situations.
Any socials you’d like to plug?
Like, in the middle of the forehead? All of them.
Once again, thanks to @DNA3000 for answering these questions! I’ll see you on Friday for DNA’s recommended interviewee! (Thanks to @Thicco_Mode for the idea) Until then, may RNG be ever in your favor.
Spidey
(side note: if you don’t like this, then don’t click on or give feedback to make it better, but don’t call the interviewees trash)
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Comments
Was 5x shorter than expected.
I had to leave for a bit to calm down.
But the rest was excellent! Always nice to see someone who knows what they’re on about
It's @DNA3000 so I expected nothing less
Also, I got tagged in this and got excited but I realized it wasn't what I thought ;(
Still waiting for @Lvernon15s time to shine
And I love Venom too! Images well compiled