**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.
Options
Abyss of Legends 100% Review
Rockypantherx
Posts: 3,900 ★★★★★
As some of you may have seen yesterday, I 100% the Abyss of Legends. It was a long and arduous journey, but I made it. And as the abyss is a pretty large piece of content, I thought I would do my usual thing and review it.
That, and I had nothing else to do.
Let’s begin with a breakdown of how much it cost me. Now, my runs were maybe a bit more expensive overall due to not having Aegon for completion or Nick Fury for any of them. I didn’t keep a running total of revives, but I have a pretty good idea of how much each path cost me. I’m going to lay it out in unit value for convenience.
- Completion (Easy path) cost around 100 revives, so that’s about 4k units.
- Path 2 didn’t actually cost me any units, but took around 65 stashed revives. Let’s call it 2.6k units
- Path 3 was around 75, so 3k units
- Path 4, which was by far the most difficult path, took around 100 revives. 4k units.
- My final path, once again, took around 65 revives. Another 2.6k units.
That, combined with mastery switches, brings my unit cost total to around 18k units to explore the entire thing. Can definitely be done with less, and waiting for all the horsemen.
I was deliberating whether to run through my experience of each path but to be honest, I would be here forever. Instead, I’m going to pick out some fights I hated, some I loved, and the downright BS. But first, I would be remiss to not discuss the ‘Brand of the Abyss’ global nodes.
Like the Labyrinth Enrage before it, I hate the concept of skirmish and warfare charges. I’m not a fan of kill switches. I understand why it’s there, but it always feels bad to die due to no fault of your own. I’m going to circle back to these later when I discuss rewards because I think there is a glaring problem with the abyss, and these charges play into that
Abyss sees the return of the incredibly small evade chance that exists only to screw you up. I had many a fun time during my runs where the fight was going perfect, it was under control. Then bam, evade, comboed, and dead. Feels bad. I lost track of how many times I screamed ‘Oh come on!’ at my phone over the course of abyss due to this.
The rest of the brands are fine. ‘Fight me Coward’ is both insulting and hilarious at the same time. Insulting because I’m losing valuable charges because the AI is being passive, and hilarious because apparently, I’m the coward when they’re playing like a Map 5 opponent.
Right, let’s get into some fights. I’m going to run through them in no particular order.
Mordo:
My least favourite fight in the abyss. And you have to face him on every path. Mordo would be fine if it wasn’t for one little BS mechanic. When Mordo evades via the abyss evade, it triggers his astral evade. Fun and Interactive degen damage. I’ll give you an example.
On path 5, I went in with my Torch against this Mordo. I baited a heavy, then countered with a medium. Or at least, that was the plan. He immediately evaded that first hit, degened and stunned me, went into a 5 hit combo, stunned me on the last hit of his combo, and I was dead.
I was not best pleased.
Not to mention you are at the mercy of the AI. Numerous times he threw his special when I went to heavy into his block during the power gain phase. I’m not surprised, Mordo’s do this everywhere, but after the first set of charges, he was doing it a ton more often due to the AI becoming more aggressive in that state.
Mephisto:
If you have a Torch with Pre-fight, this fight is hilariously fun. To see an abyss opponent melt that quickly is a thing of beauty. However, I did experience how hellish this fight could be without Torch, and without the pre-fight.
On path 1 I brought Void instead of Torch, simply because my Torch wasn’t awakened, and I was not confident in my ability to not screw up my one chance with Torch. The fight was painfully slow. Void isn’t the highest damage dealer, and my god did I feel it on this fight. The difference between this fight on path 1 and my Torch fight on path 2 blew me away.
On path 5, I had the opportunity to see how Mephisto felt with Torch when you didn’t have the pre-fight. This is because I went in with the pre-fight, and Mephisto refused to throw a special, cornered me, and whenever I hit him even once to get out the corner, he triggered his aura. So I got SP3’s
But to be honest, Torch still makes a good dent without the pre-fight. I got a good 25% off on each run before I got my pre-fight back when he was at 50% roughly. I would still advise people to awaken their Torch first though, it makes a massive difference.
Luke Cage:
I managed to fit Stealthy onto my Path 2, 3, and 4, so I had a comparatively good time in this fight.
By ‘good time’ I, of course, mean 30 minutes of being stressed as hell. Even with stealthy you have to intercept at points and my god is it terrifying. My best run against this guy was about 60%, but the solo is 100% possible. Just...set aside a good chunk of time.
If you don’t have Stealthy, She’Hulk or Spider Gwen, um, good luck. Unless you’re an absolute intercept god, this is easily going to be the worst fight in the abyss for you. Probably more so than the Collector even. And I do not say that lightly.
Darkhawk:
I really enjoyed this fight. I did it with both Magneto and Torch, and it’s a really fun, skill-based fight. You do need despair though. That is an absolute must, especially with Torch
Cyclops:
Once again, another fun, skill-based fight. I’m not quite sure why I enjoyed this one, probably because it’s a fight that actually makes you pay attention and think about it, rather than just mindlessly mashing the right side of the screen for 20 minutes until the kill switch is flipped.
Mr Sinister:
Surprisingly, another fight I enjoyed. With Torch anyway. It was like a little minigame seeing how many incinerates I could get transferred to me. And he also melts, which is the most enjoyable thing in the abyss. I’ll say this. The abyss made me like playing Torch, and made me hate playing Doom. Speaking of…
Red Skull:
I love and hate this fight. I enjoyed trying to stop him from throwing a special with Doom. But the damage reduction is hell, and it’s such a long fight. 20% is equivalent to an excellent run with Doom. If you don’t have Doom, I don’t even know how you would do this fight. It would be utter hell. Thankfully Bishop is a nice palate cleanser afterwards.
Sym Supreme:
God I hate this fight. I really hate it. 20 crits and you’re dead? Not fun guys. Not. Fun. I tried playing this fight smart. Playing like I was using Void with Torch to build up smoulders. Eventually, I gave that up and just started hammering in before the mana surge kill switch activated. It’s just warfare charges on steroids. In fact, there are a lot of fights on Path 4 and 5 that feel like that.
Masacre:
However, Masacre is possibly my favourite fight in the abyss. I love the fact it’s about playing well and maximizing your charges. Only hit him normally in phase 1, then only on the block in phase 2, aside from when you need to reset the rampage timer. 85k Block damage from Aegon was a sight to behold. I was actually looking forward to doing this fight again on path 5.
Hulk (Ragnarok):
This fight is a big fat nope from me. Despise it. Reversing the regen? Yeah, it was fun I guess. However, in my research for path 4, I didn’t realise all the videos I was watching of the fight were of his bugged state. I was really confused why the heal block returned when I went back into the fight.
15 revives, and multiple Aegon SP2’s down, he also went down on path 4. The hit damage cap is hell if you don’t have Fury. Especially since he’s a 5.7 mil fight. I really wish he wasn’t heal blocked below 25%, although I get it’s there to try and make you ‘play by the rules’
Cable:
Pretty much the same story as Hulk (Ragnarok). But there was a lesson in this one.
Always ready the nodes. Or abyssal enhancement in this case.
I didn’t realize he was also heal blocked below 25%. It took a few revives on Void for me to finally realise why I wasn’t proccing any regens. Not going to lie, it wasn’t my proudest moment.
I’m going to toot my own horn here a bit, I played like a freaking god using void on this fight. My intercepts were absolutely on point. That’s probably why I somewhat enjoyed the fight, even if I was a bit of an idiot. Doom cleaned up perfectly well here.
The Hood:
Giving Hood special 2 bias in abyss is evil.
That is all I have to say.
Nameless Collector:
Finally, and surprisingly enough, the final boss itself, the nameless collector.
Let’s not beat around the bush. This fight isn’t designed to be fun, or interesting, or engaging. It’s made to test whether you can do Aegon’s heavy trick, and how many hours you are willing to sink into the arena. Or fingers into wallet I suppose.
I actually killed him in 5 revives with my R3 6* Aegon on path 2, which I have to say, I’m pretty proud of.
If you don’t have Aegon...just...prepare to spend some revives. I used Corvus on my completion run. I only used a few revives. If by few you mean around 40.
Yeah, this guy isn’t fun, but at least once he’s over, your path in the abyss is over. Or maybe even all of the abyss is over. It’s a good feeling.
There was obviously other fun, and frustrating fights, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight.
Next, I want to discuss ‘The Horsemen of the Abyss’. That is, Aegon, Human Torch, Doctor Doom and Nick Fury. As you’ve probably picked up, I did my completion with 0 horsemen. I did a write up that you can read here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/215283/they-called-me-a-madman#latest
But the gist of it is, doing abyss without horseman, while definitely doable, is significantly worse. It really sunk in the more paths I completed just how much easier they make the entire experience. I look back on fights like Gulk and Yellowjacket, and how much of a pain they were without Fury, then apply that to so many other fights, and it terrifies me.
Personally, I don’t think it’s healthy to have 4 champions just absolutely dominate a piece of content in comparison to other champs like the horsemen do in the abyss. Of course, we have Quake in the wider game, and as much as I love Quake, she is a problem in the same sort of vein. I only hope more options are released to rival the horsemen so that abyss is not such a ‘have and have not’ situation. You need only look at Brian Grant to see how chasing the horseman can drive someone insane.
And finally, the rewards. The rewards right now are excellent. The nexus was a brilliant addition. That and the generic awakening gem will always have value.
My problem with the rewards is less to do with the rewards, and more the content they reward. Warfare and Skirmish charges are appareently set up in a way that they scale exponentially with higher-ranked 6*s. This content is not intended for 5 stars. Even 6* R3’s don’t solo these fights. So what’s my issue? Well, by the time we reach the level where the warfare/skirmish charges are high enough to solo the fights, we’re going to be past the T5CC. It’s the same issue Labyrinth has. Most R5’s will automatically extend the enrage timer. But you’re competing for R4 materials.
Don’t get me wrong, the rewards are in no way bad, and will probably never be. But I don’t like the fact the content is set up for a power level above what it offers. Thankfully, unlike Labyrinth, the abyss has the nexus. Which is going to have tremendous value until 6*s are irrelevant.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. If you want to see my rewards and initial impressions upon 100%ing it, I made this post yesterday:
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/244717/the-abyss-is-conquered#latest
Emma Frost is now R3 and I couldn’t be happier with her. Already soloed a hazard shift, stun immune, stubborn Thing with her in T3, so she’s already putting work in for me on day 1.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great morning, afternoon, evening, etc, etc. ‘Til next time.
That, and I had nothing else to do.
Let’s begin with a breakdown of how much it cost me. Now, my runs were maybe a bit more expensive overall due to not having Aegon for completion or Nick Fury for any of them. I didn’t keep a running total of revives, but I have a pretty good idea of how much each path cost me. I’m going to lay it out in unit value for convenience.
- Completion (Easy path) cost around 100 revives, so that’s about 4k units.
- Path 2 didn’t actually cost me any units, but took around 65 stashed revives. Let’s call it 2.6k units
- Path 3 was around 75, so 3k units
- Path 4, which was by far the most difficult path, took around 100 revives. 4k units.
- My final path, once again, took around 65 revives. Another 2.6k units.
That, combined with mastery switches, brings my unit cost total to around 18k units to explore the entire thing. Can definitely be done with less, and waiting for all the horsemen.
I was deliberating whether to run through my experience of each path but to be honest, I would be here forever. Instead, I’m going to pick out some fights I hated, some I loved, and the downright BS. But first, I would be remiss to not discuss the ‘Brand of the Abyss’ global nodes.
Like the Labyrinth Enrage before it, I hate the concept of skirmish and warfare charges. I’m not a fan of kill switches. I understand why it’s there, but it always feels bad to die due to no fault of your own. I’m going to circle back to these later when I discuss rewards because I think there is a glaring problem with the abyss, and these charges play into that
Abyss sees the return of the incredibly small evade chance that exists only to screw you up. I had many a fun time during my runs where the fight was going perfect, it was under control. Then bam, evade, comboed, and dead. Feels bad. I lost track of how many times I screamed ‘Oh come on!’ at my phone over the course of abyss due to this.
The rest of the brands are fine. ‘Fight me Coward’ is both insulting and hilarious at the same time. Insulting because I’m losing valuable charges because the AI is being passive, and hilarious because apparently, I’m the coward when they’re playing like a Map 5 opponent.
Right, let’s get into some fights. I’m going to run through them in no particular order.
Mordo:
My least favourite fight in the abyss. And you have to face him on every path. Mordo would be fine if it wasn’t for one little BS mechanic. When Mordo evades via the abyss evade, it triggers his astral evade. Fun and Interactive degen damage. I’ll give you an example.
On path 5, I went in with my Torch against this Mordo. I baited a heavy, then countered with a medium. Or at least, that was the plan. He immediately evaded that first hit, degened and stunned me, went into a 5 hit combo, stunned me on the last hit of his combo, and I was dead.
I was not best pleased.
Not to mention you are at the mercy of the AI. Numerous times he threw his special when I went to heavy into his block during the power gain phase. I’m not surprised, Mordo’s do this everywhere, but after the first set of charges, he was doing it a ton more often due to the AI becoming more aggressive in that state.
Mephisto:
If you have a Torch with Pre-fight, this fight is hilariously fun. To see an abyss opponent melt that quickly is a thing of beauty. However, I did experience how hellish this fight could be without Torch, and without the pre-fight.
On path 1 I brought Void instead of Torch, simply because my Torch wasn’t awakened, and I was not confident in my ability to not screw up my one chance with Torch. The fight was painfully slow. Void isn’t the highest damage dealer, and my god did I feel it on this fight. The difference between this fight on path 1 and my Torch fight on path 2 blew me away.
On path 5, I had the opportunity to see how Mephisto felt with Torch when you didn’t have the pre-fight. This is because I went in with the pre-fight, and Mephisto refused to throw a special, cornered me, and whenever I hit him even once to get out the corner, he triggered his aura. So I got SP3’s
But to be honest, Torch still makes a good dent without the pre-fight. I got a good 25% off on each run before I got my pre-fight back when he was at 50% roughly. I would still advise people to awaken their Torch first though, it makes a massive difference.
Luke Cage:
I managed to fit Stealthy onto my Path 2, 3, and 4, so I had a comparatively good time in this fight.
By ‘good time’ I, of course, mean 30 minutes of being stressed as hell. Even with stealthy you have to intercept at points and my god is it terrifying. My best run against this guy was about 60%, but the solo is 100% possible. Just...set aside a good chunk of time.
If you don’t have Stealthy, She’Hulk or Spider Gwen, um, good luck. Unless you’re an absolute intercept god, this is easily going to be the worst fight in the abyss for you. Probably more so than the Collector even. And I do not say that lightly.
Darkhawk:
I really enjoyed this fight. I did it with both Magneto and Torch, and it’s a really fun, skill-based fight. You do need despair though. That is an absolute must, especially with Torch
Cyclops:
Once again, another fun, skill-based fight. I’m not quite sure why I enjoyed this one, probably because it’s a fight that actually makes you pay attention and think about it, rather than just mindlessly mashing the right side of the screen for 20 minutes until the kill switch is flipped.
Mr Sinister:
Surprisingly, another fight I enjoyed. With Torch anyway. It was like a little minigame seeing how many incinerates I could get transferred to me. And he also melts, which is the most enjoyable thing in the abyss. I’ll say this. The abyss made me like playing Torch, and made me hate playing Doom. Speaking of…
Red Skull:
I love and hate this fight. I enjoyed trying to stop him from throwing a special with Doom. But the damage reduction is hell, and it’s such a long fight. 20% is equivalent to an excellent run with Doom. If you don’t have Doom, I don’t even know how you would do this fight. It would be utter hell. Thankfully Bishop is a nice palate cleanser afterwards.
Sym Supreme:
God I hate this fight. I really hate it. 20 crits and you’re dead? Not fun guys. Not. Fun. I tried playing this fight smart. Playing like I was using Void with Torch to build up smoulders. Eventually, I gave that up and just started hammering in before the mana surge kill switch activated. It’s just warfare charges on steroids. In fact, there are a lot of fights on Path 4 and 5 that feel like that.
Masacre:
However, Masacre is possibly my favourite fight in the abyss. I love the fact it’s about playing well and maximizing your charges. Only hit him normally in phase 1, then only on the block in phase 2, aside from when you need to reset the rampage timer. 85k Block damage from Aegon was a sight to behold. I was actually looking forward to doing this fight again on path 5.
Hulk (Ragnarok):
This fight is a big fat nope from me. Despise it. Reversing the regen? Yeah, it was fun I guess. However, in my research for path 4, I didn’t realise all the videos I was watching of the fight were of his bugged state. I was really confused why the heal block returned when I went back into the fight.
15 revives, and multiple Aegon SP2’s down, he also went down on path 4. The hit damage cap is hell if you don’t have Fury. Especially since he’s a 5.7 mil fight. I really wish he wasn’t heal blocked below 25%, although I get it’s there to try and make you ‘play by the rules’
Cable:
Pretty much the same story as Hulk (Ragnarok). But there was a lesson in this one.
Always ready the nodes. Or abyssal enhancement in this case.
I didn’t realize he was also heal blocked below 25%. It took a few revives on Void for me to finally realise why I wasn’t proccing any regens. Not going to lie, it wasn’t my proudest moment.
I’m going to toot my own horn here a bit, I played like a freaking god using void on this fight. My intercepts were absolutely on point. That’s probably why I somewhat enjoyed the fight, even if I was a bit of an idiot. Doom cleaned up perfectly well here.
The Hood:
Giving Hood special 2 bias in abyss is evil.
That is all I have to say.
Nameless Collector:
Finally, and surprisingly enough, the final boss itself, the nameless collector.
Let’s not beat around the bush. This fight isn’t designed to be fun, or interesting, or engaging. It’s made to test whether you can do Aegon’s heavy trick, and how many hours you are willing to sink into the arena. Or fingers into wallet I suppose.
I actually killed him in 5 revives with my R3 6* Aegon on path 2, which I have to say, I’m pretty proud of.
If you don’t have Aegon...just...prepare to spend some revives. I used Corvus on my completion run. I only used a few revives. If by few you mean around 40.
Yeah, this guy isn’t fun, but at least once he’s over, your path in the abyss is over. Or maybe even all of the abyss is over. It’s a good feeling.
There was obviously other fun, and frustrating fights, but these are the ones I wanted to highlight.
Next, I want to discuss ‘The Horsemen of the Abyss’. That is, Aegon, Human Torch, Doctor Doom and Nick Fury. As you’ve probably picked up, I did my completion with 0 horsemen. I did a write up that you can read here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/215283/they-called-me-a-madman#latest
But the gist of it is, doing abyss without horseman, while definitely doable, is significantly worse. It really sunk in the more paths I completed just how much easier they make the entire experience. I look back on fights like Gulk and Yellowjacket, and how much of a pain they were without Fury, then apply that to so many other fights, and it terrifies me.
Personally, I don’t think it’s healthy to have 4 champions just absolutely dominate a piece of content in comparison to other champs like the horsemen do in the abyss. Of course, we have Quake in the wider game, and as much as I love Quake, she is a problem in the same sort of vein. I only hope more options are released to rival the horsemen so that abyss is not such a ‘have and have not’ situation. You need only look at Brian Grant to see how chasing the horseman can drive someone insane.
And finally, the rewards. The rewards right now are excellent. The nexus was a brilliant addition. That and the generic awakening gem will always have value.
My problem with the rewards is less to do with the rewards, and more the content they reward. Warfare and Skirmish charges are appareently set up in a way that they scale exponentially with higher-ranked 6*s. This content is not intended for 5 stars. Even 6* R3’s don’t solo these fights. So what’s my issue? Well, by the time we reach the level where the warfare/skirmish charges are high enough to solo the fights, we’re going to be past the T5CC. It’s the same issue Labyrinth has. Most R5’s will automatically extend the enrage timer. But you’re competing for R4 materials.
Don’t get me wrong, the rewards are in no way bad, and will probably never be. But I don’t like the fact the content is set up for a power level above what it offers. Thankfully, unlike Labyrinth, the abyss has the nexus. Which is going to have tremendous value until 6*s are irrelevant.
Anyway, I’ve rambled on long enough. If you want to see my rewards and initial impressions upon 100%ing it, I made this post yesterday:
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/244717/the-abyss-is-conquered#latest
Emma Frost is now R3 and I couldn’t be happier with her. Already soloed a hazard shift, stun immune, stubborn Thing with her in T3, so she’s already putting work in for me on day 1.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a great morning, afternoon, evening, etc, etc. ‘Til next time.
16
Comments
So 2030 at this rate
Especially one where there's only a literal handfull of counters.
The whole concept of this type of content is completly rubbish and should never be copied again (and by type of content I don't mean huge healthpools)