While I would be so happy with Nightcrawler and Hawkeye getting buffed as they are 2 of my all time favorite marvel characters, they should at least try to make the game look like a marvel game again from the outside. What I mean by that is to give people a reason use the most recognizable characters, such as Captain America, Iron Man, and Spider-Man. The champion this year lineup has been filled with characters long time comic book fans might have even heard of, and overall, it has been garbage. My personal opinion is that it is a problem when Spider-Man and captain America go entirely unused in a marvel game. The only members out of Stan Lee’s avengers or x-men roster, Chris Claremont’s x-men, or the avengers in the MCU who are ever used to my knowledge are Colossus, Archangel, and Iceman. Even then Colossus is only good because he was dogshit to an extreme and Archangel who only somewhat represents angel. I know this comment kind of lost its train of thought but it sums up how I feel about the current roster. With each month that goes by it feels less and less like a marvel game with a few exceptions. The fantastic four was an amazing addition to the game and is so cool that they have all the synergies with each other. While running 4 science champions might be impractical, I am happy that Kabam put in so much effort. The mutant month which brought Magneto to where he should have been and added 2 of the most popular characters in x-men lore. To sum it up, I started typing a comment and ended up writing a paragraph without even thinking. What am I even doing anyway? This seems like something a rational person would have made an actual post so Kabam might be able to see my opinion. I just typed out a paragraph about the current status of the Mcoc roster under a buff suggestion post. I mean, once people see how long this is who is even going to read this far? (You might think that I’m adding to that one by continuing to type, which is true). I’m done ranting.
This is a marvel game from the outside though. They market it using the well known comic book characters and the movie outfits. They space out well known characters to increase the game’s longevity, and flesh out the roster
One could argue quite a few of these characters introduced this year are a bit popular (minus Prof X and Apocalypse)
Spider-Ham is known from into the spiderverse, Squirrel Girl has a decent following, Immortal Hulk has a good comic run, and a couple others I won’t mention. It still very much feels like a marvel game with a diverse roster of marvel characters ranging from most popular to unknown
-Pre-fight ability to choose between Bleed, Incinerate and Shock debuff at the start of a fight -Passive: Pre-fight debuffs last 8 seconds each All basic attacks are guarenteed crits while the opponent is suffering from a debuff Ignores evade as he is an expert marksman -All Special Attacks: Gain a stackable cruelty buff for 10 seconds and inflicts a debuff based on pre-fight. -Special 1: Power drains up to 1.5 bars of power from the opponent. This power drain does NOT function like a debuff anymore -Special 2: Inflicts debuff on the first hit of the special attack instead of the last hit. -Special 3: Inflicts 3 of the chosen debuffs instead of one
-Sig-ability: Gain a fury buff increasing attack by up to 20% each for each debuff on the opponent
I have a counter update suggestion for Iron Fist. In addition to the overhaul detailed below I would strongly suggest Kabam modify Iron Fist's fighting style like they did the with Daredevil (Hell's Kitchen).
Iron Fist
Signature Ability
Living Weapon - Pre-Fight Ability
At the end of the fight, Iron Fist maintains #% (# to 100%) of his final Chi in his Persistent Meter. Before beginning his next fight Iron Fist meditates on how to distribute Chi throughout his body to enhance his abilities.
Chi-Enhanced Durability: Iron Fist gains # Physical Damage Reduction for each Chi spent and has a #% Chance to gain an Unstoppable Buff for # seconds while dashing forward based on Chi gained during the next fight.
Chi-Enhanced Healing: Iron Fist gains # Health for each Chi spent and gains +# Regeneration rate per # second based on Chi gained during the next fight.
Chi-Enhanced Reflexes: Iron Fist gains # Block Proficiency and gains a #% Chance to gain a Falter Passive, causing 100% of the Opponent’s attacks to Miss for # seconds based on Chi gained during the next fight.
Chi-Enhanced Senses: Iron Fist gains # Aptitude and gains #% Chance to gain True Strike for # seconds when dashing forward, allowing him to ignore Armor, Resistances, Auto-Block and all Evade effects for each Chi gained during the next fight.
Iron Fist maintains all his unused Chi and carries it into the next fight. Chi diminishes # for every fight Iron Fist doesn’t participate in during a Quest or War.
Passive: Chi Augmentation Iron Fist can harness the spiritual energy of Chi to augment his physical and mental capabilities.
Base Chi is 0. Maximum Chi is ###.
Chi increases by 1 every # seconds.
Landing a Basic Attack increases Chi by #.
Landing a Critical Strike increases Chi by #.
Landing a Heavy Attack increases Chi by #.
Landing a Special Attack increases Chi by #.
Performing a Perfect Block increases Chi by #.
Evading an attack increases Chi by #.
Getting hit by a Basic Attack decreases Chi by #.
Getting hit by a Critical Strike decreases Chi by #.
Getting hit by a Heavy Attack decreases Chi by #.
Getting hit by a Special Attack decreases Chi by #.
Performing a Perfect Block results in no loss of Chi.
Attack rating increases by # per # Chi.
Tenacity rating increases by # per # Chi.
Gaining Chi is immune to nullify and ability reduction mechanics.
Passive: Heart of Shou-Lao the Undying At a Chi level of #, Iron Fist can draw upon the energy from the heart of the mystic serpent Shou-Lao, and make his fist superhumanly powerful. Iron Fist activates this ability by dodging backward and holding block for # seconds. Once activated all of Iron Fists right-handed attacks are Unblockable, cause an Armor Break that reduces Armor by -# and has a #% Chance of dealing # Incinerate damage for # seconds. If the opponent is immune to either Armor Break or Incinerate Iron Fist gains x. This ability consumes # Chi per second and remains active until all Chi is consumed or until Iron Fist deactivates in the same manner as it was activated.
Passive: Energy Absorption Energy attacks have a #% Chance to fail and deal no damage. This damage protection consumes # Chi and #% of the damage negated is transferred into Power Gain.
Passive: Pressure Point Attacks Critical hits have a #% Chance to inflict a Passive Slow debuff for # seconds, preventing the effects of Unstoppable and lowering Evade Ability Accuracy by #%.
All Attacks: 8% chance to gain a Precision buff, increasing Critical Rating by # for # seconds.
Heavy Attacks: Iron Fist delivers a powerful Chi strike, disrupting his opponent's flow of energy with 100% chance Nullifying 1 buff.
Blocking during reflective armor phase stores 90% of the damage that would be inflicted and is released when the opponent is struck with a heavy or special attack. Inflict stacking bleed on crits. 60% reduced debuff duration for non-damaging debuffs. Shrug off all permanent debuffs after 2 seconds. Increased attack for each armor up. Have a chance to gain armors on both given and received hits.
Dev Diary: BPCW is mostly defensive, and this changes that. Tbh I feel like KM is what BPCW should have been, but that’s past us now. It definitely doesn’t rocket him to the top of the charts, but it does make him much better IMO. If you guys have a vibranium function that would make him more useful, let’s hear it!
Rogue
Buff timer is extended and paused during special attacks New sig: Once per quest, replace Rogue's abilities with her previous enemy's abilities with 60%-90% potency. This cannot function against tech champions [this means at sig 1, copying say, Psylocke would cause your L1's to drain 15% max power, and at max sig, she would drain 23.5% max power, where Psylocke would normally drain 25%. Ability accuracy for absorbed abilities remains constant. Persistent and pre-fight abilities cannot be absorbed] L2 does not generate power.
Dev Diary: Rogue really isn’t that bad, but is inconvenient enough to not have much of a place over other top options. Her main problem is the short buff steal duration. Her ability steal might be broken; it would need extensive thinking through, but I can’t think of any examples besides a non-playable mini boss. It’s worth looking into for sure though. It’s like a champion swap we saw in the A7 beta, except you have to have beaten them with Rogue previously.
Loki
Immune to cold effects L2 inflicts coldsnap long enough for a sig 100 5* to keep it up (so he can be an evade counter) As a master manipulator, Loki can influence his enemy's emotions: Ending a combo with a medium attack places an aggression passive, while ending a combo with a light attack places a fear passive [These stack up to three, with increasing Ai influence per stack. For example, 1 aggression is the same as the aggressive node, 2 aggression is the same behaviorally as the fury phase of oscillate. Vice versa for fear passives and defensive Ai. Opposite passives cancel each other out. Being knocked over with a heavy removes all behavioral passives. Neither behavioral passive effects the special 3's chances of triggering
Any more cool illusion/deception type abilities that you can think of? Share in the comments! I feel like Loki is missing 1 or 2 things still
Dev Diary: I think one of the more interesting things is the AI and we as humans learning to adapt to it. With Loki you will be able to change it to what is easier for you. Even though there isn’t much hard utility in changing the AI style, I feel like there is a lot of potential in it.
Diablo
Instead of 4 of each type of potion, have 16 potions that can be any type. Intercepting an opponent grants one persistent charge. Max 24
Dev Diary: Now that Diablo can be used for more than 3 fights per quest, he might be good 😱😱😱. A simple but necessary change.
Civil Warrior
Even combo specials grant a permanent fury passive and odd combo specials grant an armor passive. These would be a smidgeon stronger than She Hulk’s furies. If attacked while charging a heavy attack, autoblock it, trigger the heavy attack, and inflict a shock passive that gains strength per passive armor up/fury. Cooldown 15 seconds
Dev Diary: CW is actually a pretty good champ...except he has very poor damage output. This fixes it and gives him a bit more utility. I don’t have much to say for these shorter buffs, which is a little unfortunate since I am excited about pretty much all of these lol. Kabam could undoubtedly do some more sophisticated way to get damage, but this is relatively simple to implement.
Red Skull
L2 Shocks are much more potent and have 30% increased duration
New power drain mechanic [potency remains as is] : Blocking basic attacks with 1 armor drains 10% power and for each armor up, drain more power: up to 25% power at 10 stacks. one to three armor ups are consumed when the enemy crosses a threshold of power: 1 is lost when the opponent is drained to 0% power or across the first power threshold. 2 are lost when the opponent is drained across the 2nd power threshold, and 3 are lost when the opponent is drained from maximum power.
Charging a heavy attack disables special attacks when the opponent is at maximum power for the duration of the attack, and an additional 2 seconds.
Dev Diary: This one was really tricky to figure out, and as such, I am not greatly satisfied with everything that's been changed. Any ideas on this one? All of RS’s utilities get in the way of each other. He’s fine on defense generally, but like, offensively he is just not great.
Taskmaster
Each time he exploits a weakness, gain a 0.5 second fatigue debuff that reduces his crit rating by 100. Each time an immunity prevents TM from gaining a debuff, gain a passive +20% cruelty. Max stacks 20
Dev Diary: I’ve also mentioned this general idea before, but now it’s with a bunch of other buffs (very nice and shiny yes indeed)
Star Lord
Select your element gun effect with a prefight. Change the element mid-fight by dashing back and holding block. L3 applies all effects
Dev Diary: Make SL Relevant Again! (It sounded better in my head)
Heimdall
Furies and armor ups are given more potency. Well timed blocks increase the number of generated armor up charges. True strike now also ignores miss and glancing abilities.
Dev Diary: Nobody really complains about Heimdall, but it would be great if he was anything more than a synergy champ. With this buff he can be.
So there you have it: my 20 buff ideas! I had a lot of fun coming up with these over the past few weeks. Any suggestions where I asked or critiques of where I didn’t? Did you catch the multiple easter eggs in Ultron’s and Cap WWII’s sections? Let me know!
I agree Taskmaster should be updated to reflect that he is one of the most formidable hand-to-hand opponents in the Marvel Universe, especially against other Skill champs. The biggest change that should result in a Taskmaster update would be absorbing his current synergies into his base abilities to some degree.
For example:
Current Exploit Weakness target Attack is a Special Attack, all his Special Attacks have #% chance to become Unblockable. (Mostly Average Joes)
Gain 5% of his Max Power each time he Exploits a Weakness. (Professors in Crime)
Gains a #% chance to Evade against the current Exploit Weakness target. (Termination Contact)
Current Exploit Weakness target Attack has a #% chance to become Unblockable. (Thunderbolts)
Then his synergies can build on these base abilities that are now a part of his kit.
Which brings me to another important point with updating Taskmaster: the number of champions he has synergies with needs to be GREATLY expanded.
In the Marvel Universe, Taskmaster runs his own academy where he trains heroes as well as villains and mastered the fighting styles of countless characters, like Spider-Man, Deadpool and Wolverine to name a few, to train others to counter them more effectively. For this reason alone, Taskmaster should have one of the broadest array of synergies in The Contest.
Lastly, when I am playing Taskmaster it infuriates me when a Concussion Debuff lapses before I can place another one on my opponent. I am sure that pisses Taskmaster off too. That being said, on a personal note, adding a Fury buff that increases attack rating when this happens would be fitting, but at the same time I know that goes against the skill aspect of playing the character. Maybe a 50% chance of it happening would be a good compromise.
Now that the Black Widow movie release has been pushed to to May 7, 2021 let's get this update approved and working so it can be dropped right beforehand to generate some buzz for The Contest.
@Hammerbro_64 You’re right. Black Bolt's Telepathy and Telepathic Immunity is cannon and he should be resistant to telepathic and reverse control attacks. He also uses telepathy as a way to communicate with his wife so he should probably have a strong synergy with her (Read Auto-Block).
It think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to updating Black Bolt. His main superhuman ability is the power to harness electrons, which isn’t addressed at all in his current build. Electrons provide stability and allow atoms to bond with other atoms to form compounds. Inversely, preventing atoms from bonding results in a break down in the states of matter. This sounds like a pretty potent power and reads like a setup for Armor Up/Force Field, Armor Break and Armor Shattered effects. Granted The Contest has evolved massively since he was first introduced, but now he can be overhauled to reflect the powerful character he is in The Marvel Universe. Black Bolt also uses this ability to enhance his strength and durability levels where he is able to go toe-to-toe versus Marvel's heaviest hitters like, The Hulk, The Thing and Thor.
Again, you are right about the Master Blow being an ability that Black Bolt only uses when his back is against the wall and he is facing a top tier opponent. There should be some drawback to using it, but I think the health penalty you suggested might be a little too drastic. In Fantastic Four #45 when Black Bolt used the Master Blow against The Thing it did not leave him injured, it left him weakened. Instead of losing health for using Master Blow maybe limiting Black Bolts ability to gain buffs or Power would be a more even tradeoff.
Your post got me thinking and I included a draft update below.
Black Bolt Update Suggestions
Signature Ability - Master Blow Black Bolt's antenna channels his energy powers to be unleashed in a Master Blow. The Master Blow is a single punch that is launched as a Special 3 attack that can only unlocked and activated once # Persistent Charges are gained.
Once activated the Master Blow deals # Physical Damage, # Energy Damage, Stuns the opponent for # seconds and applies an Armor Shattered debuff reducing the opponent’s armor rating to # for the remainder of the fight.
However, this ability applies a Cross-Fight Exhaustion debuff on Black Bolt that reduces his Critical Hit Damage Rating by # and the potency of his Power Gain effects by #% for the rest of the fight and two additional matches.
Passive: Electron Manipulation
Black Bolt can create, shape and manipulate electrons. Electrons play an essential role in electricity, magnetism, and thermal conductivity, leaving Black Bolt immune to shock, magnetism and thermal effects.
Energy Resistance is increased by #.
Black Bolt can activate a field of electrons around himself by dashing backward and holding block for # seconds. This Electron Field has a maximum strength equal to #% of his maximum health and takes #% of all damage (even Special 3). When the field is destroyed, it goes into a # second cooldown, and can be reactivated again.
Electron Capture - Persistent Charges
Black Bolt's brain subconsciously generates an unknown particle that absorbs electrons he interacts with. This occurs with High-Energy Collisions and Beta Decay.
High-Energy Collisions
High-Energy Collisions occurs when Black Bolt dashes forward and successfully lands a Medium Attack. Each successful attack gains a Persistent Charge and has a #% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff for # seconds.
High-Energy Collisions also occur when Black Bolt Perfect Blocks or Auto-Blocks an attack. (Note: Auto- Block would be a synergy gained with Medusa.) Each successful Perfect or Auto-Block gains a Persistent Charge and has a #% chance to gain an permanent Fury buff increasing Attack rating by # for the remainder of the fight.
Beta Decay
Beta Decay occurs when Special Attacks are utilized by either Black Bolt or his opponent or when a damaging debuff is placed on Black Bolt.
Black Bolt gains a Persistent Charge each time he successfully lands a Special Attack.
Black Bolt has a #% chance to gain a Persistent Charge when damaged by a Special Attack or Debuff and a 100% chance to gain a permanent Cruelty buff, increasing Critical Damage Rating by # for the remainder of the fight.
Any Power gained before Black Bolt has enough Persistent Charges to unlock Master Blow deals # Energy Damage to the opponent.
I agree with all of those champions needing updates except Rogue. It WOULD be nice if her buff steal duration was increased, and she is dependent on max sig to increase crit rate and amount of life stolen, but I'd be afraid they'd totally change her and screw her up like they did to H.K. I've liked all of the champion updates until that one. Now anybody who isn't absolute trash I'm afraid they are going to totally ruin and take away some really useful and fun abilities. I had no problems with Daredevil the way he was. Everybody can't be built to clear end-game content. His armor break medium was unique and I found it very useful, now it's gone.
Old Suit Bonuses Hearts: Regen that takes 7min to go from 1hp to max hp Spades: Inflicts weakness or fatigue on hits Clubs: Higher crit rate with a higher combo Diamonds: Higher attack with lower health.
New Suit Bonuses Hearts: Stronger regen (about 1/3 of Hyperion's) with a 3% life steal on mediums Spades: 30% Chance to inflict slow on all hits Clubs: Functions the same as Domino's lucky, just without the evade. Grants L1 and L3 a chance to critical bleed Diamonds: Functions like Mighty Charge 3 (Debuff immune, unstoppable and increased attack)
Sig ability now has a 90% chance to trigger and additional sig levels increase duration from 5secs to 15secs
Dev Diary: Like Moon Knight, just an unfortunate case of being added before kabam’s devs could do all the cool things they do now.
Also, Fixit should have a synergy with platinumpool that benefits him as well, not only platinumpool.
Comments
One could argue quite a few of these characters introduced this year are a bit popular (minus Prof X and Apocalypse)
Spider-Ham is known from into the spiderverse, Squirrel Girl has a decent following, Immortal Hulk has a good comic run, and a couple others I won’t mention. It still very much feels like a marvel game with a diverse roster of marvel characters ranging from most popular to unknown
-Pre-fight ability to choose between Bleed, Incinerate and Shock debuff at the start of a fight
-Passive:
Pre-fight debuffs last 8 seconds each
All basic attacks are guarenteed crits while the opponent is suffering from a debuff
Ignores evade as he is an expert marksman
-All Special Attacks: Gain a stackable cruelty buff for 10 seconds and inflicts a debuff based on pre-fight.
-Special 1: Power drains up to 1.5 bars of power from the opponent. This power drain does NOT function like a debuff anymore
-Special 2: Inflicts debuff on the first hit of the special attack instead of the last hit.
-Special 3: Inflicts 3 of the chosen debuffs instead of one
-Sig-ability: Gain a fury buff increasing attack by up to 20% each for each debuff on the opponent
Iron Fist
Signature Ability
Living Weapon - Pre-Fight Ability
At the end of the fight, Iron Fist maintains #% (# to 100%) of his final Chi in his Persistent Meter. Before beginning his next fight Iron Fist meditates on how to distribute Chi throughout his body to enhance his abilities.
-
Chi-Enhanced Durability: Iron Fist gains # Physical Damage Reduction for each Chi spent and has a #% Chance to gain an Unstoppable Buff for # seconds while dashing forward based on Chi gained during the next fight.-
Chi-Enhanced Healing: Iron Fist gains # Health for each Chi spent and gains +# Regeneration rate per # second based on Chi gained during the next fight.-
Chi-Enhanced Reflexes: Iron Fist gains # Block Proficiency and gains a #% Chance to gain a Falter Passive, causing 100% of the Opponent’s attacks to Miss for # seconds based on Chi gained during the next fight.-
Chi-Enhanced Senses: Iron Fist gains # Aptitude and gains #% Chance to gain True Strike for # seconds when dashing forward, allowing him to ignore Armor, Resistances, Auto-Block and all Evade effects for each Chi gained during the next fight.-
Iron Fist maintains all his unused Chi and carries it into the next fight.Chi diminishes # for every fight Iron Fist doesn’t participate in during a Quest or War.
Passive: Chi Augmentation
Iron Fist can harness the spiritual energy of Chi to augment his physical and mental capabilities.
-
Base Chi is 0. Maximum Chi is ###.-
Chi increases by 1 every # seconds.-
Landing a Basic Attack increases Chi by #.-
Landing a Critical Strike increases Chi by #.-
Landing a Heavy Attack increases Chi by #.-
Landing a Special Attack increases Chi by #.-
Performing a Perfect Block increases Chi by #.-
Evading an attack increases Chi by #.-
Getting hit by a Basic Attack decreases Chi by #.-
Getting hit by a Critical Strike decreases Chi by #.-
Getting hit by a Heavy Attack decreases Chi by #.-
Getting hit by a Special Attack decreases Chi by #.-
Performing a Perfect Block results in no loss of Chi.-
Attack rating increases by # per # Chi.-
Tenacity rating increases by # per # Chi.-
Gaining Chi is immune to nullify and ability reduction mechanics.Passive: Heart of Shou-Lao the Undying
At a Chi level of #, Iron Fist can draw upon the energy from the heart of the mystic serpent Shou-Lao, and make his fist superhumanly powerful.
Iron Fist activates this ability by dodging backward and holding block for # seconds.
Once activated all of Iron Fists right-handed attacks are Unblockable, cause an Armor Break that reduces Armor by -# and has a #% Chance of dealing # Incinerate damage for # seconds. If the opponent is immune to either Armor Break or Incinerate Iron Fist gains x.
This ability consumes # Chi per second and remains active until all Chi is consumed or until Iron Fist deactivates in the same manner as it was activated.
Passive: Energy Absorption
Energy attacks have a #% Chance to fail and deal no damage.
This damage protection consumes # Chi and #% of the damage negated is transferred into Power Gain.
Passive: Pressure Point Attacks
Critical hits have a #% Chance to inflict a Passive Slow debuff for # seconds, preventing the effects of Unstoppable and lowering Evade Ability Accuracy by #%.
All Attacks: 8% chance to gain a Precision buff, increasing Critical Rating by # for # seconds.
Heavy Attacks: Iron Fist delivers a powerful Chi strike, disrupting his opponent's flow of energy with 100% chance Nullifying 1 buff.
I agree Taskmaster should be updated to reflect that he is one of the most formidable hand-to-hand opponents in the Marvel Universe, especially against other Skill champs. The biggest change that should result in a Taskmaster update would be absorbing his current synergies into his base abilities to some degree.
For example:
Current Exploit Weakness target Attack is a Special Attack, all his Special Attacks have #% chance to become Unblockable. (Mostly Average Joes)
Gain 5% of his Max Power each time he Exploits a Weakness. (Professors in Crime)
Gains a #% chance to Evade against the current Exploit Weakness target. (Termination Contact)
Current Exploit Weakness target Attack has a #% chance to become Unblockable. (Thunderbolts)
Then his synergies can build on these base abilities that are now a part of his kit.
Which brings me to another important point with updating Taskmaster: the number of champions he has synergies with needs to be GREATLY expanded.
In the Marvel Universe, Taskmaster runs his own academy where he trains heroes as well as villains and mastered the fighting styles of countless characters, like Spider-Man, Deadpool and Wolverine to name a few, to train others to counter them more effectively. For this reason alone, Taskmaster should have one of the broadest array of synergies in The Contest.
Lastly, when I am playing Taskmaster it infuriates me when a Concussion Debuff lapses before I can place another one on my opponent. I am sure that pisses Taskmaster off too. That being said, on a personal note, adding a Fury buff that increases attack rating when this happens would be fitting, but at the same time I know that goes against the skill aspect of playing the character. Maybe a 50% chance of it happening would be a good compromise.
Now that the Black Widow movie release has been pushed to to May 7, 2021 let's get this update approved and working so it can be dropped right beforehand to generate some buzz for The Contest.
@Hammerbro_64 You’re right. Black Bolt's Telepathy and Telepathic Immunity is cannon and he should be resistant to telepathic and reverse control attacks. He also uses telepathy as a way to communicate with his wife so he should probably have a strong synergy with her (Read Auto-Block).
It think you hit the nail on the head when it comes to updating Black Bolt. His main superhuman ability is the power to harness electrons, which isn’t addressed at all in his current build. Electrons provide stability and allow atoms to bond with other atoms to form compounds. Inversely, preventing atoms from bonding results in a break down in the states of matter. This sounds like a pretty potent power and reads like a setup for Armor Up/Force Field, Armor Break and Armor Shattered effects. Granted The Contest has evolved massively since he was first introduced, but now he can be overhauled to reflect the powerful character he is in The Marvel Universe. Black Bolt also uses this ability to enhance his strength and durability levels where he is able to go toe-to-toe versus Marvel's heaviest hitters like, The Hulk, The Thing and Thor.
Again, you are right about the Master Blow being an ability that Black Bolt only uses when his back is against the wall and he is facing a top tier opponent. There should be some drawback to using it, but I think the health penalty you suggested might be a little too drastic. In Fantastic Four #45 when Black Bolt used the Master Blow against The Thing it did not leave him injured, it left him weakened. Instead of losing health for using Master Blow maybe limiting Black Bolts ability to gain buffs or Power would be a more even tradeoff.
Your post got me thinking and I included a draft update below.
Black Bolt Update Suggestions
Signature Ability - Master Blow
Black Bolt's antenna channels his energy powers to be unleashed in a Master Blow. The Master Blow is a single punch that is launched as a Special 3 attack that can only unlocked and activated once # Persistent Charges are gained.
Once activated the Master Blow deals # Physical Damage, # Energy Damage, Stuns the opponent for # seconds and applies an Armor Shattered debuff reducing the opponent’s armor rating to # for the remainder of the fight.
However, this ability applies a Cross-Fight Exhaustion debuff on Black Bolt that reduces his Critical Hit Damage Rating by # and the potency of his Power Gain effects by #% for the rest of the fight and two additional matches.
Passive: Electron Manipulation
Black Bolt can create, shape and manipulate electrons. Electrons play an essential role in electricity, magnetism, and thermal conductivity, leaving Black Bolt immune to shock, magnetism and thermal effects.
Energy Resistance is increased by #.
Black Bolt can activate a field of electrons around himself by dashing backward and holding block for # seconds. This Electron Field has a maximum strength equal to #% of his maximum health and takes #% of all damage (even Special 3). When the field is destroyed, it goes into a # second cooldown, and can be reactivated again.
Electron Capture - Persistent Charges
Black Bolt's brain subconsciously generates an unknown particle that absorbs electrons he interacts with. This occurs with High-Energy Collisions and Beta Decay.
High-Energy Collisions
High-Energy Collisions occurs when Black Bolt dashes forward and successfully lands a Medium Attack. Each successful attack gains a Persistent Charge and has a #% chance to inflict an Armor Break debuff for # seconds.
High-Energy Collisions also occur when Black Bolt Perfect Blocks or Auto-Blocks an attack. (Note: Auto- Block would be a synergy gained with Medusa.) Each successful Perfect or Auto-Block gains a Persistent Charge and has a #% chance to gain an permanent Fury buff increasing Attack rating by # for the remainder of the fight.
Beta Decay
Beta Decay occurs when Special Attacks are utilized by either Black Bolt or his opponent or when a damaging debuff is placed on Black Bolt.
Black Bolt gains a Persistent Charge each time he successfully lands a Special Attack.
Black Bolt has a #% chance to gain a Persistent Charge when damaged by a Special Attack or Debuff and a 100% chance to gain a permanent Cruelty buff, increasing Critical Damage Rating by # for the remainder of the fight.
Any Power gained before Black Bolt has enough Persistent Charges to unlock Master Blow deals # Energy Damage to the opponent.