Discussion: What are the best champions for Monthly Cavalier?
BitterSteel
Member Posts: 9,264 ★★★★★
Now that we've had a fair few months of cavalier difficulty, I wanted to write a guide on who I've found works well for each set of nodes. This isn't necessarily an exhaustive list, but I've been using a lot of different champions on my main and mini account just to keep things fun and new for the monthly grind. As such, I think I've figured out quite a long list of champions who shine with the nodes, along with a lot who aren't used as much in day-to-day content .
Additionally, while it would be easy to just say Doom, Ghost, and Nick fury work really well, yeah, we know they work really well; I will be including these sorts of established god tiers in the list, but only if they benefit from the nodes, and I'll list them separately. For example, everyone loves Ghost, but she doesn't have an armour buff, or any way to gain a fury from the global. So, she won't be included.
Without further ado, onto the globals.. This'll be long, so here's your warning. I'll do a couple classes per post.
Additionally, while it would be easy to just say Doom, Ghost, and Nick fury work really well, yeah, we know they work really well; I will be including these sorts of established god tiers in the list, but only if they benefit from the nodes, and I'll list them separately. For example, everyone loves Ghost, but she doesn't have an armour buff, or any way to gain a fury from the global. So, she won't be included.
Without further ado, onto the globals.. This'll be long, so here's your warning. I'll do a couple classes per post.
Post edited by Kabam Ahab on
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Science:
The Science node grants a fury buff any time a debuff expires on the opponent, this can be any debuff including your stun from parry. Stacking up to a maximum of 10, this makes it very accessible. Likely the most accessible class node of any, since every cavalier player will have parry, meaning any champion can benefit from this. Additionally, for every weakness, exhaustion or fatigue on the opponent, there is a 20% chance to inflict vulnerability debuffs, which increase the damage your critical hits do.
God tiers
Captain America Infinity War - Placing a cosmic, tech and science champ on your team here is the best way to utilise the node; science is the most important however since this adds a weakness, meaning a chance to apply the exhaustion
Human torch - Not building temperature at the start can speed up acquiring the furies then build temperature after, but either way Torch does fantastic with the global
Lesser-known
Abomination (Red Guardian Synergy) - this synergy gives him a chance to apply poison on each hit, so when they expire his damage gets even crazier
Immortal Abomination - due to the weakness applied on block, every parry will give 2 furies, add in the poisons expiring and I-abom does incredibly well with the global
Ant Man - with the quantum trinity adding more attack, passive fury when he glances, 15% more attack for every debuff on the opponent and the science global, it seems ant man is built for this cavalier challenge. It's very easy to get 5+ fatigues on the opponent, which can give 100% chance per hit to apply a vulnerability. It's also easy to get 20+ debuffs on the opponent so ant man hits VERY hard. My R1 L1 6* can get cavalier fights down in 35-40 hits pretty consistently.
Wasp - Throw a few heavies and the weakness means you can gain vulnerability from the global, with Wasp's guaranteed crits it makes for a great combo.
Invisible woman - Parrying can apply exhaustion which can give you vulnerability and feed the global furies at the same time
Luke Cage - I'm sure everyone knows about our blue jeaned boy by now, but if not, Luke's exhaustion builds up and gives you vulnerability, with more attack for every debuff he can get some pretty nasty stun chains. (bonus if you pair with sunspot, red hulk and champion)
She Hulk - Does ok with this node, almost didnt make the list. Her sp1 can apply exhaustion which you can get vulnerability from, and her passive furies add to the global node. She has very nice damage.
Spider Ham - demolishes with this global, if you thought his power sting did damage before, try with the 10 furies from the global. He deals very well with getting the furies with a debuff on each medium hit
Skill
The skill node gives the attacker a fury buff every time a damaging debuff expires from the opponent or is purified. It is a little more niche than science, as not every attacker has access to enough damaging debuffs. It's a little simpler to explain as well..
God Tiers
Nick Fury - Is there really anything that needs to be said?
Blade - Nice to get furies from parries with Blade, sp1 and sp2 work equally well to build furies, personally I found it best to use an sp1 first to make getting to an sp2 easier
Lesser-known
Black Panther Classic - Does ok here, little bit RNG based but does nice damage
Black Widow Deadly Origins - Furies build so fast it feels instant, a couple combo's and you'll be nearly there. Awesome for this global. just try and intercept
Gwenpool - builds fury really easily and does really nice damage
Hit Monkey – Does ok here, bit slower to build furies but he hits hard once he gets them. Best to do a MLM combo
Massacre – Does ok again, igniting bat can be hard but if you can manage that building the furies is pretty standard
Night Thrasher (Guillotene/Punisher+moonknight synergy) – can be pretty easy to build the furies, it requires one of the synergies and is made easier with them both, which give him a chance to bleed on critical hits and mediums respectively
Ronin - Awesome for this node, so many bleeds and he hits very, very hard. Gets fights down super quick by building up to 7 cruelties for the precision passive with ML, MLL, ML, MLL etc combo
Squirrel Girl - Builds furies fairly easily with her consistent bleed most fights will go down in an sp2 for the instant bleeds with a decently ranked SG
The mutant global enables mutants to take 90% reduced damage from bleed, and whenever they launch a special it purifies all bleed debuffs and activates a prowess passive. I’ve found this to be one of the most niche globals, with not many champions benefitting greatly from it. This is largely due to the fact that it is hard to throw off a special with more than 3 bleeds on you and getting to 3 Sp1 can be 30 or so hits. By the time you’re ramped up, the fight is over.
Since it is paired with biohazard, I’ve found myself using omega and colossus more than actually using the node, since they benefit more from having bleeds applied than other champs do from the prowess.
I’ve also found that if you want to take advantage of this node, willpower is pretty necessary or you’ll slowly bleed out. The bleed resistant champions like Omega, Magneto, Beast and Gambit don’t need it.
Lastly, some champions actually interfere with this node with ability accuracy, for example Domino doesn’t always purify her bleeds into prowess. In any case, on with the list.
God Tiers
Namor – Imperius Rex has never felt faster than here, every bleed gives you an extra outrage which shoots you up to 30, you also reflect the bleed damage onto the opponent when duped which is a nice little bonus
Havok – playing a slightly different style here, but the bleeds add plasma charge onto the opponent and spamming sp1 or going for sp2 can both work
Sunspot – you throw a lot of specials with sunspot which works to your favour. Build bleed on yourself and then purify with a special.
Lesser-known
Professor X – it’s really easy to build up prowess by purifying bleed with Prof X, since you have a lot of specials to throw
Storm Pyramid X – the prowess works really nicely with her base prowess, and throwing off a big sp2 can be great if it crits
Cable – Note that I haven’t been able to test Cable since I don’t have a 5 or 6* (yet..) but from what I can tell, he should be good, degenning the opponent when he is bled, and lots of power to throw off specials to purify the bleeds
Tech
The tech node gives tech champs the ability to power drain on parries when they have an armour buff (not passive), and whenever they power drain, lock, or burn a champion they gain a passive fury. This global even by itself it’s an incredible piece of utility, using a champion with a permanent armour buff you can keep an opponent under a bar of power the entire match.
God Tiers
Warlock – Parry heavy gives you incredible bleed damage while keeping the opponent under 1 bar of power and building your passive furies
G2099 – the first fight will be a little longer with her, but once that’s over and you’re ramped up you can use the power drain prefight to build furies in the next fight, while saving her armour buff for parries
Guardian – another champ with an armour buff, guardian will build his passive furies nicely giving him a huge damage boost
Hullkbuster – His armour buff unfortunately reduces the ability accuracy of the node to give him fury, but still occasionally will give him the furies to buff his damage even higher than it already is
Lesser-known
Doc-Oc – when duped, if you trigger the power lock, every hit will give him passive furies. Doc-Oc is one of the best champions for this global
Howard the Duck – with his armour buffs, howard can trigger the furies relatively easy and buff his damage
IMIW – my personal favourite champion that interacts with any class global, IMIW throws one sp1, and his power lock/power drain on repulsor hits means each medium, second light and last light all trigger 2 passive furies. Along with the 2 from the sp1, that’s one and a bit combo’s until you’re fully ramped up. IMIW has incredible utility and this damage increase brings him to a crazy level
Vulture – just about makes this list, almost didn’t on account of his abysmal crit rate, but vulture has a permanent armour buff and on his sp1 and 2 it triggers a debuff which drains/burns power on each hit and he can do some solid damage
Cosmic
The cosmic global grants champions an aptitude buff for every fury, armour or precision buff above 3 that they trigger. Aptitudes increase the potency of the 3 buffs triggered in future. This global is fairly niche, as not many champions gain enough furies/armours/precision buffs to take full advantage, someone like Captain Marvel Movie would do incredibly well with it, if only it increased the potency of current furies, but to take full advantage of the node she needs to go through one full phase of binary, which just isn’t efficient.
A small tip for this global, your dex counts as a crit buff, so if you dex while at 2 or above furies, you get an aptitude on triggering dex, and on hitting the opponent to remove the dex buff.
Lastly, the Heimdall synergy can really help increase aptitude with Magik and Angela for the crit and fury buffs and the cosmic supremacy synergy for increased buff duration also (along with other buff time increase synergies, like cap IW and Mr fantastic cosmic/skill synergy)
God Tiers
Hyperion – spam heavy, nuff said
Venom – with the right RNG venom can get crit, fury, and armour buffs. If you get other ones, I’d re-roll with heavy for the chance for aptitude. It’s your call whether to re-roll on armour (which gives you aptitude) or on cruelty (which gives you damage but no aptitude)
Medusa – The aptitude from her furies is nice, and the consistent cycle of her furies gives her more and more. This gives her the god tier damage she used to be known for
Lesser-known
Angela – she hits crazy hard when you get her going, one of the easiest aptitude ramp ups
Annihulus – starts off a little slow, but by two sp2s the opponent should be dead. The first builds aptitudes, and the second kills them. Try to dex and then hit them as much as possible after the first sp2, as this builds aptitude faster
Gamora – builds aptitudes really nicely if you use MLLLL combo with the occasional heavy refresh. Can hit really hard
Nova – His mediums hit crazily hard with the aptitudes, which are pretty easy to get if you play nova right. Just parry, dash back and then forward to get nova charges, build to 75 for a fury and then double medium to go below 75. Each time you get to 75 it refreshes and gets another fury up to 5. Aptitudes build nicely and he hits super hard.
Mystic
The mystic node gives champions a prowess passive every time they nullify buffs. This is relatively useful and easy to access, since most mystic champs have some form of nullify. The other global buff, personal space, gives a lot of buffs to nullify, and there are generally some buffs on the lanes like resistor, ragnarok etc
God Tiers
Dr Doom – obviously?
Claire – unfortunately, Claire isn’t as good as I expected for this node. She works, of course, but her buff immunity doesn’t count as a nullify, so unless you are against a bleed/poison or incinerate immune champ, she won’t be fantastic
Longshot – his sig ability can really help here to nullify buffs, if not, his sp2 does mega damage with the incinerate, and also nullifies giving prowess so the rest of it hits hard too
Morningstar – her sp2 does crazy damage when there are lots of buffs, with the prowess the hits themselves do great damage too, as well as the energy damage. Can be a pain to ramp up for a shorter quest
Sorcerer supreme – her nullification aura can be great for stripping buffs and an already hard-hitting champion just gets even better; I’ve hit over 100k specials with my r3 6*
Symbiote Supreme – his stagger is great for the personal space, and every match up has buffs on this quest, so Sym does incredible. One sp3, then sp2 power steal to another sp2 rotation should take care of every fight.
Scarlet Witch – I don’t have the champ to test, but in theory she should work fantastic, as she has a very accessible nullify and hard hitting specials
Lesser-known
Man Thing – Fantastic for this node with MD3/4, he brings his own buffs to nullify and can easily get the prowess. Do an sp1, heavy attack to nullify, bringing you to another sp1, repeat again until 10 prowess and get to an sp2, fight will be over with a huge damaging sp2
Dr Voodoo – same concept as man thing, helpful to have own buffs
Hood – with the stagger he’s a slightly worse version of Sym Supreme. But Hood has decent utility and can hold his own with the prowess boost to his special damage