**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.
The Twelve Labors of Hercules
Raichu626
Posts: 934 ★★★★
So, Hercules won. I had a few ideas for him, kinda more inspired by his mythological self than the comic self, but maybe some of these could fit into his actual kit in some way:
Hercules has 12 labors to do in each quest, each granting him a presistent charge and special abilities. These can be done in any order:
Special attack 1: Arrows of Apollo Hercules punches the opponent in the face, then fires three arrows into their chest.
Each arrow hit has a 70% chance to inflict a bleed debuff, dealing 70% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 5 seconds. If an arrow inflicts both a bleed and a poison debuff, they are combined into a passive Hydra Acid, dealing 250% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 20 seconds and reducing the opponents regeneration rate by 70%.
Special attack 2: Carnivorous Horses Hercules kicks the opponents stomach (if they have one), followed by a meat eating mare thrown to the face.
The first hit pauses all of Hercules personal Prowess buffs for 10 seconds after capturing the Mares of Diomedes
The second hit has a 100% chance to inflict a bleed debuff, dealing 100% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 2 seconds. If Hercules has captured the Mares of Diomedes, inflict another bleed debuff for each Prowess on Hercules.
Special attack 3: Helpful Nereids Hercules summons two rivers to clean his opponents, then wrestles them into the ground.
Once per quest, if the opponent is below 5% of their max health, this attack knocks them out. If this damage is reduced or avoided, this ability can trigger again
100% chance to inflict a weakness, armor break and slow debuff on the opponent for 20 seconds. Weakness reduces attack rating by 50%, armor break reduces armor rating by 1200 and slow reduces the ability accuracy of evade and unstoppable effects by 100%. While the opponent is slowed from this attack, Hercules becomes immune to incinerate.
Signature Ability: Flaw of Wrath Every 10 hits in Hercules combo meter:
Gain a fury and cruelty buff for 7 seconds, increasing attack rating by 20%-80% and critical damage rating by 300-1200. The potency of these buffs increases by 2% per hit in Hercules combo meter, up to 50 hits. If Hercules loses his combo meter while he has 10 or more hits, he is inflicted with a weakness and fatique debuff, reducing attack rating by 40% and critical rating by 60% for 10 seconds.
Synergies:
Cosmic God Avengers:
Hercules: Armor break lasts an additional 3 seconds
Thor: Increase stun duration by 1 second
Combo Party:
Hercules: If Hercules is awakened, carry 70% of his combo meter from fight to fight, up to 40 hits
AEgon: Start the quest with 20 hits on the persitent combo meter
Thor (Ragnarok): Boon of the Gods lasts 5 seconds longer
Bring him back soon:
Hercules: Immediately kidnapLockjaw Cerberus at the start of the first fight. While Cerberus' indestructible buff is active, the opponent's attacks have a 100% chance to miss Hercules
Medusa: Armor shatter lasts an additional 3 seconds and reduces robots' ability accuracy by an additional 50%
Black Bolt and Karnak: +15% attack at the start of the fight. This is increased to 25% if the Inhuman Royal Family synergy is also active
Kitty Armor; Best Armor:
Hercules: Gain 500 block proficiency after killing the Nemian Lion
Killmonger: Gain an additional indestructible passive when using the special 2 attack; increase attack rating by 20% while indestructible
Black Panter (Both): Gain an indestructible Buff preventing all incoming damage for 5 seconds at the start of the fight.
Partners in Wrath:
Hercules: gain a fury buff increasing attack rating by 25% for 7 seconds at the start of the fight
Hulk: Increase ability accuracy by 20%
Hulk (Ragnarok): Crowd Frenzy lasts an additional 2 seconds
Last part, I swear: a few notes
One: His synergies, especially with older, less useful champions, are pretty weak. That is because PleaseOhDearGodKabamJustBuffThemForRealAndStopSlappingSynergyBandAidsEverywhere!!11!1. Thank you.
One and a Half: His own synergies aren't that strong either. Just nice to have, his whole kit is in his actual kit; the combo party synergy takes away his sig ramp-up. But that wasn't so stong in the first place. The Inhumans make it easier to retaliate when almost knocked out. Kitty Armor gives more block prof, but Herc is already indestructible half the time, and can regenerate. The Hulks just give him one more buff at the start of the fight.
Two: His Sig isn't that strong but pretty nice (at least it's not supposed to be that strong. I might be wrong here). It's main use is to give him more buffs, for Buffed-Up nodes. Even tho with with the Hind and the Bull charges he already has 2 buffs + dexterity, and once you damage a Buffed-Up opponent, you also gain the Nemian Lion charge, aka third buff. Then knock the opponent out with Sp3 and enjoy having 3 buffs active at all times. Or get the Diomedes Charge. Or the Apple charge. Or the Hippolyta charge. Or...
Three: If you get the Boar and the Lion charge, you could do some nice combos against aggressive opponents, because you will go both indestructible and unstoppable each time you fill a bar of power. (I noticed this has an issue with his sig ability, but you could instantly retaliate out of a blocked hit without getting hit or needing to parry, for stun immune matchups)
Four: The main thing I wanted was for Hercules to 1: be able to get multiple charges per fight, and 2: not need all his charges. If you're skilled enough, the Cerberus charge is pretty much useless. Hippolyta's powergain isn't crazy strong and only necessary if you want to keep up slow the whole fight. Shooting the birds is useless if you don't encounter evade in a quest. The Cretan Bull is as useless as in greek mythology. And so on.
Five: The Sp1 can reverse healing. These acids last really long and you'll get between 2 and 3 on average per sp1. Only drawback is having to defeat a regen opponent without this first, and needing both bleed and poison.
Six: Deep wounds is good for him. If you want to just deal damage, capture the mares and then spam sp2. I'm not 100% sure, but you should be able to stack about 3 prowess buffs. First use sp2 just after gaining prowess to pause it, then rush to another with Hippolyta, pause the prowess again after gaining a second one, then use sp2 again before they expire and get the third before he throws the horse. Getting a fourth one could get really stressful. Maybe with CapIW and MrF's cosmic synergies?
Seven: Incursions. He would be so beautiful with Buff Cornucopia and perpetual offense. So many buffs, so many bleeds...
Eight: His L/M attacks have no utility. Maybe they shoud have, maybe he has enough abilities already. He probably has too many abilities. I don't know. Didn't want to come up with something.
Hercules has 12 labors to do in each quest, each granting him a presistent charge and special abilities. These can be done in any order:
- Kill the Nemian Lion: Deal damage to an opponent that used an indestructible effect. After completing this task, Hercules gains an indestructible buff preventing all incoming damage for 4 seconds. He also gains this buff whenever he fills a bar of power.
- Kill the Lernaean Hydra: Knockout an opponent that used regeneration. After completing this task, Hercules' special 1 arrows have a 100% chance to poison the opponent, each dealing 150% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 15 seconds and reducing the opponents regeneration abilities by 30%.
- Capture the Ceryneian Hind: Use the dexterity mastery to dodge incoming attacks 10 times in one fight. After completing this task, Hercules gains a precision buff every 10 seconds, increasing his critical rating by 950 for 10 seconds. Also, the precision buff from dexterity lasts an additional 3 seconds.
- Capture the Erymanthian Boar: Evade an ustoppable opponents dash attack, then knock them down. After completing this task, Hercules gains an ustoppable buff for 2 seconds each time he fills a bar of power.
- Clean King Augeas' stables: Use the special 3 attack to knock out an opponent. After completing this task, Hercules gains a fury buff every 10 seconds, increasing his attack rating by 100% for 10 seconds.
- Shoot the Stymphalian Birds: Hit a #flying or evading opponent with the special 1 attack. After completing this task, Hercules gains an accuracy buff every 10 seconds, allowing him to ignore all evade effects for 10 seconds.
- Capture the Cretan Bull: Knock the opponent down with a heavy attack. After completing this task, Hercules gains an armor up buff every 10 seconds, increasing his armor rating by 800 for 10 seconds
- Capture the Mares of Diomedes: Dodge and punish an opponents special attack. After completing this task, Hercules gains a prowess buff every 10 seconds, increasing his special attack damage by 90% for 10 seconds. This buff is paused for 10 seconds if Hercules uses his special 2 attack.
- Steal the Girdle of Hippolyta: Knock down a female opponent while she's stunned. After completing this task, Hercules gains a powergain buff every 10 seconds, granting 60% of a bar of power over 10 seconds.
- Steal the cattle of Geryon: Knock down a #Size:L or #Size:XL champion or a #Robot three times. After completing this task, Hercules' heavy attacks have a 100% chance to inflict an armor break debuff, reducing the opponents armor rating by 1000 for 15 seconds. This armor break reduces the ability accuracy of robots by 33.4%.
- Steal the Apples of the Hesperides: Dash back and idle for 2 seconds, then knock the opponent down or out. After completing this task, Hercules gains a regeneration buff each time he fills a bar of power, regenerating 4% of his max health over 8 seconds. This buff is paused for 5 seconds if Hercules is allowed to idle for 1 second.
- Kidnap Cerberus: Knockout a mystic champion or an #inhuman. After completing this task, instead of getting knocked out, Hercules gains an indestructible buff preventing all incoming damage for 2 seconds. This can only happen once per fight. If the "Guardian of the Rainbow bridge" Synergy is active, it is activated instead and can be activated twice.
Special attack 1: Arrows of Apollo Hercules punches the opponent in the face, then fires three arrows into their chest.
Each arrow hit has a 70% chance to inflict a bleed debuff, dealing 70% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 5 seconds. If an arrow inflicts both a bleed and a poison debuff, they are combined into a passive Hydra Acid, dealing 250% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 20 seconds and reducing the opponents regeneration rate by 70%.
Special attack 2: Carnivorous Horses Hercules kicks the opponents stomach (if they have one), followed by a meat eating mare thrown to the face.
The first hit pauses all of Hercules personal Prowess buffs for 10 seconds after capturing the Mares of Diomedes
The second hit has a 100% chance to inflict a bleed debuff, dealing 100% of Hercules' attack as direct damage over 2 seconds. If Hercules has captured the Mares of Diomedes, inflict another bleed debuff for each Prowess on Hercules.
Special attack 3: Helpful Nereids Hercules summons two rivers to clean his opponents, then wrestles them into the ground.
Once per quest, if the opponent is below 5% of their max health, this attack knocks them out. If this damage is reduced or avoided, this ability can trigger again
100% chance to inflict a weakness, armor break and slow debuff on the opponent for 20 seconds. Weakness reduces attack rating by 50%, armor break reduces armor rating by 1200 and slow reduces the ability accuracy of evade and unstoppable effects by 100%. While the opponent is slowed from this attack, Hercules becomes immune to incinerate.
Signature Ability: Flaw of Wrath Every 10 hits in Hercules combo meter:
Gain a fury and cruelty buff for 7 seconds, increasing attack rating by 20%-80% and critical damage rating by 300-1200. The potency of these buffs increases by 2% per hit in Hercules combo meter, up to 50 hits. If Hercules loses his combo meter while he has 10 or more hits, he is inflicted with a weakness and fatique debuff, reducing attack rating by 40% and critical rating by 60% for 10 seconds.
Synergies:
Cosmic God Avengers:
Hercules: Armor break lasts an additional 3 seconds
Thor: Increase stun duration by 1 second
Combo Party:
Hercules: If Hercules is awakened, carry 70% of his combo meter from fight to fight, up to 40 hits
AEgon: Start the quest with 20 hits on the persitent combo meter
Thor (Ragnarok): Boon of the Gods lasts 5 seconds longer
Bring him back soon:
Hercules: Immediately kidnap
Medusa: Armor shatter lasts an additional 3 seconds and reduces robots' ability accuracy by an additional 50%
Black Bolt and Karnak: +15% attack at the start of the fight. This is increased to 25% if the Inhuman Royal Family synergy is also active
Kitty Armor; Best Armor:
Hercules: Gain 500 block proficiency after killing the Nemian Lion
Killmonger: Gain an additional indestructible passive when using the special 2 attack; increase attack rating by 20% while indestructible
Black Panter (Both): Gain an indestructible Buff preventing all incoming damage for 5 seconds at the start of the fight.
Partners in Wrath:
Hercules: gain a fury buff increasing attack rating by 25% for 7 seconds at the start of the fight
Hulk: Increase ability accuracy by 20%
Hulk (Ragnarok): Crowd Frenzy lasts an additional 2 seconds
Last part, I swear: a few notes
One: His synergies, especially with older, less useful champions, are pretty weak. That is because PleaseOhDearGodKabamJustBuffThemForRealAndStopSlappingSynergyBandAidsEverywhere!!11!1. Thank you.
One and a Half: His own synergies aren't that strong either. Just nice to have, his whole kit is in his actual kit; the combo party synergy takes away his sig ramp-up. But that wasn't so stong in the first place. The Inhumans make it easier to retaliate when almost knocked out. Kitty Armor gives more block prof, but Herc is already indestructible half the time, and can regenerate. The Hulks just give him one more buff at the start of the fight.
Two: His Sig isn't that strong but pretty nice (at least it's not supposed to be that strong. I might be wrong here). It's main use is to give him more buffs, for Buffed-Up nodes. Even tho with with the Hind and the Bull charges he already has 2 buffs + dexterity, and once you damage a Buffed-Up opponent, you also gain the Nemian Lion charge, aka third buff. Then knock the opponent out with Sp3 and enjoy having 3 buffs active at all times. Or get the Diomedes Charge. Or the Apple charge. Or the Hippolyta charge. Or...
Three: If you get the Boar and the Lion charge, you could do some nice combos against aggressive opponents, because you will go both indestructible and unstoppable each time you fill a bar of power. (I noticed this has an issue with his sig ability, but you could instantly retaliate out of a blocked hit without getting hit or needing to parry, for stun immune matchups)
Four: The main thing I wanted was for Hercules to 1: be able to get multiple charges per fight, and 2: not need all his charges. If you're skilled enough, the Cerberus charge is pretty much useless. Hippolyta's powergain isn't crazy strong and only necessary if you want to keep up slow the whole fight. Shooting the birds is useless if you don't encounter evade in a quest. The Cretan Bull is as useless as in greek mythology. And so on.
Five: The Sp1 can reverse healing. These acids last really long and you'll get between 2 and 3 on average per sp1. Only drawback is having to defeat a regen opponent without this first, and needing both bleed and poison.
Six: Deep wounds is good for him. If you want to just deal damage, capture the mares and then spam sp2. I'm not 100% sure, but you should be able to stack about 3 prowess buffs. First use sp2 just after gaining prowess to pause it, then rush to another with Hippolyta, pause the prowess again after gaining a second one, then use sp2 again before they expire and get the third before he throws the horse. Getting a fourth one could get really stressful. Maybe with CapIW and MrF's cosmic synergies?
Seven: Incursions. He would be so beautiful with Buff Cornucopia and perpetual offense. So many buffs, so many bleeds...
Eight: His L/M attacks have no utility. Maybe they shoud have, maybe he has enough abilities already. He probably has too many abilities. I don't know. Didn't want to come up with something.
10
Comments
P.S. It would be cool if they put Ares in. He is technically in the comics...
I admit keeping it all together could get hard, tho he has the advantage over Corvus that he gains a different Buff for each Charge. It's at least possible to figure out what you've already done
I like the idea of more contest specific labors that aren't based on the myths(I mean, I already roughly "translated" the labors into contest versions). But I'd hope they wouldn't make them like "Knock out X" 12 times, that could get rather complicated to do in a single quest
Mission 3 needs to change to something like just avoiding hits with no Dexterity involved. You can't make champion's kit dependent on having a particular mastery.
HERCULES
(Insert base stats here)
ABILITIES
ON HEAVY
(Two hits, he uppercuts the opponent, then throws a net over them)
The first hit steals one of the opponents buffs, converting it into a 5 second version.
The second hit inflicts a 10 second Slow debuff on the opponent, preventing evade and unstoppable.
TWELVE LABORS - PERSISTENT CHARGE
Hercules has four types of labors, each grouped into sets of three.
Hercules can compete each labor 3 times.
Capture an Unstoppable beast
Capture an Evasive beast
Kill an undefeatable beast
Steal a legendary boon
KILL AN UNDEFEATABLE BEAST
Knock down a size XL or L character
For every labor of this category, Hercules gains one of the following buffs.
1. LENERIAN HYDRA ARROWS - Every arrow hit of Hercules's special 1 inflicts a 20 second poison debuff.
2. STYMPHALLION CROWS - Hercules learns from the evasiveness of the crows, giving him a 10% chance to evade attacks.
3. NEMEAN LION SKIN - Hercules gains an indestructible buff as long as his combo meter is above 10.
STEAL A LEGENDARY BOON
Steal a buff using your heavy attack
For every labor of this category, Hercules gains one of the following buffs.
1. CHALICE OF HELIOS - (Steal a power gain) - Gain a permanent power gain, gaining 10% of a bar of power every second.
2. APPLES OF THE HESPERIDIES - (Steal a regeneration buff) - (Dash back and hold block once per fight) - Hercules regenerates 15% of his max health over 1 second. (Stacks with the Hiemdall synergy)
3. GIRDLE OF HIPPOLLYTA - (Steal a precision buff) - Hercules gains a permanent precision passive, increasing critical chance by 100%.
CAPTURE AN EVASIVE BEAST
Prevent an opponent from evading an attack with slow.
For every labor of this category, Hercules gains one of the following buffs.
1. CERYNIAN HIND - Gain a permanent true strike buff, ignoring auto-block and evade.
2. HORSES OF DIOMEDES - Hercules' s basic attacks have a 30% chance to bleed the opponent.
3. CATTLE OF KING AUGEAS - Hercules befriends the water spirits, gaining a permanent passive prowess increasing special attack damage by 100%.
CAPTURE AN UNSTOPPABLE BEAST
Prevent an opponent from activating unstoppable with slow.
For every labor of this category, Hercules gains one of the following buffs.
1. CRETAN BULL - Hercules's medium attacks have a 50% chance to inflict incinerate.
2. ERYMANTHIAN BOAR - Hercules gains unstoppable when struck. This ability has a 10 second cooldown.
3. CERBERUS - When Hercules would be knocked out, he instead gains indestructible and unblockable for 5 seconds, after which he gains a permanent degeneration passive.
SIGNATURE ABILITY - Flaw of wrath (I liked this idea)
Hercules gains an infinite duration 10% fury and cruelty buff for every 10 hits on his combo meter. When he loses his combo, he gains a 5 second 10% weakness and exhaustion.
This is the Hercules I want to see in the game. If anyone from Kabam sees this, please please PLEASE do this with Hercules. If you need to tweak some numbers, that's cool, but please do something like what we're suggesting here. Both me and Riachu thought long and hard about these, so at least do something similar.
The Grandmaster fight requiers dex and parry.
Mr Sinister is practically built around parry.
Mags and Sunspot as well to a lesser extent (perfect block chance and long heavy charging)
Lastly, as I just realized going though my champs, Stark Spidey absolutely relies on dexterity. Good luck getting any poise with his 3% evade chance
So, it happened before, specifically with those two very basic masteries. I don't think it's that bad to require/encourage having these
Mojo's props can be triggered by both sides and they're explicitly stated to not trigger unless possible to perform and Stark Spider has access to taunt and 70% evade on specials for this exact reason. As for the others, you for some reason seem to confuse "this works well on the character" with "the character needs this to function properly". The discussion isn't how basic or common the mastery is, it's about actually forcing a player to a particular build to use a champion. For an extreme version image something like "Corvus only gets persistent cruelties if you have Double Edge on" or anything like that.
One way I'd see to go around is would be giving him built-in dexterity effect that sums with player's mastery level. I'm sure this is already used in the game, I think one of Elsa's synergies works like that.
Sinister relies on pausing his DoT debuffs and Soul Leech for damage, his Havok synergy is even more explicit in that. This is simply not possible without parry.
An example of a champion that just works well with parry but doesn't need it to function would be Blade. He benefits more from parry than most champs, but it's not "needed". Not having parry won't stop you from playing blade with reasonable efficiency (You'd still be much more efficient with parry, but that's true for 99% of champs). It will for Sinister, Spot and Mags. Good thing I didn't ask for Double Edge, but for a basic mastery absolutely every single player needs to have to be able to play the game properly. This version of Hercules wouldn't force players to get dex, the rest of the game does that pretty well already
I'm not against putting a basic version of dex into his kit, that would definitely work as well. I just don't think it would be necessary
Gotta be honest with you, I've never used Sinister or Suns on a level where it matters so can't really make a comment. You can try to heavy intercept with Mags though. It's way worse and more risky than just parrying but hey, the question was "can you", not "will it be as good".
I don't even know what to make out of the last quoted part. I specifically said "it's not about it being basic, look what it can lead to" and you replied with "But it's basic and it doesn't". Like, come on man. We're theorycrafting here anyway.
I didn't ask whether Kabam intended for you to stun Mojo when he's defending, ofc they did, but if they intended for you to get stunned while using Mojo. That would simply be insane champion design. It was absolutely about "will it be as good". You can still use my version of Hercules without dex, you just can't use one of his abilites. The same thing is true for Sinister and parry, but a lot worse. It is not possible to use about half of Sinister's offensive kit without parry. Pause DoT? Not possible. Pause Soul Leech? Same thing. Use the Havok Synergy for more damage? Can't do that. Gain precision and cruelty to boost damage? Only after sp2 and just for a short time. No matter how you spin it, Mr Sinister is built around having parry. And I've never seen anyone complain about that. My Herc just loses a precision buff, but keeps everything else (Tho I should be honest here, he also loses powergain because he can't stun without parry.) I shoulda maybe said that, but I disagree. The fact that it isn't something like bleeding edge is very important. You said that your problem was forcing players to have a specific mastery build, so I already pointed out that the game has been forcing players to get parry and dexterity for years. Bleeding edge/suicides in general are 100% voluntary masteries that only a minority of players have enabled, and a small majority at most has them unlocked at all. This is not the case for dex. Sooner or later you have to get this mastery.
Parry and dex are in a unique position where they've become fundamental to the combat in this game. That's why I think it's okay to have a champion's abilities based on having them active. But only for these two masteries.
And just to repeat myself: I think you could put a dexterity replacement in his abilites and base the third labor on that instead. I just didn't do it because I didn't think of it as very important.