These are not the words of a player who ranked up Hood for synergy purposes. And where there is one @Cat_Murdock there is guaranteed to be dozens or hundreds more.
And as is being discussed in the other thread, "better" doesn't matter any more. "Better at what" is what matters now. Hood was pretty good at buff control, and there are not ten mystics objectively better than Hood available as 6* rarity at controlling buff-heavy fights. The vast majority of players might have only one or two of those until their roster gets very wide.
It’s actually a different situation. Namor was intentionally nerfed, while The Hood seems to have been nerfed based on ignorance of where his value lies.
If I had Hood ranked, I’d want RDTs. The only reason why I didn’t rank up my six star up to r2 was because all my ranks up have been for my next legends run and he didn’t fit the bill. Hood, as he is, is an amazing champion and this nerf is unwarranted
I want to see before / after before making a judgement. So many champs over the years we've looked at and said they'll be trash, and we've been surprised, and there's others which have been overhyped from the description, only to disappoint.
Once I've seen the numbers and played him, then I'll decide if I want to complain or not
It’s not a case of how good his numbers are. His utility (literally the reason people ranked him in the first place) is being taken away. That’s the problem. Something that’s been the same for years is being removed without any thought about the people who invested in this champ. ( I’m kinda angry too because I technically invested in him aswell)
I want to see before / after before making a judgement. So many champs over the years we've looked at and said they'll be trash, and we've been surprised, and there's others which have been overhyped from the description, only to disappoint.
Once I've seen the numbers and played him, then I'll decide if I want to complain or not
It's not about his numbers though. His utility has been stripped away and people ranked him up for buff control. He might hit as hard as Ghost now but his utility is gone and nothing can change that. People now have a hole in their buff-control roster. Kabam should respect the investment of those players.
Wow, change notes have been out for 30 minutes and everyone already knows exactly how this change is going to effect him? Let the release happen, use the champ, then condemn it if it’s warranted
I think the most important aspect of the Hood change is being overlooked, and it is something that while Kam mentions at the end of his video, I don't think he made the direct case for. If I understand Kam's video correctly, Kam makes the case that the devs took away too much relative to what they added back, and that's problematic for the players who invested in Hood for those things the devs took away. From that perspective, maybe we all should wait and see if that's true.
However, I believe that is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Hood is good or bad. It doesn't matter if the devs added enough, or not enough. The real problem is that Hood's update reflects a toxic design philosophy, and I don't use that word lightly. The philosophy is basically this: we can take away anything we want, as long as we put more stuff back.
This game doesn't work that way, and in fact is moving farther and farther away from that. Usefulness is not linear: we don't have champs that are 8s that are better than 7s. We have champs that are useful in this fight, and champs that are useful in that fight. We have champs good in some situations and not in others. And we have a content design philosophy magnifying those differences in higher tier content. You need a roster with a wide range of capabilities to do all the content coming out.
We no longer live in a world where the devs can turn a champ that is a 4 into a champ that is a 7 and walk away happy. Instead we live in a world where Hood had very specific buff control capabilities that were severely weakened in some aspects, and then had other stuff added. We cannot simply say the stuff added is "better" than the stuff removed, because for the players who were relying upon Hood to do those things that were removed, the champ no longer functions as desired in their specific roster.
This is already problematic in a game where champion acquisition is random, so you have to deal with the hand you're dealt. But this game is also a game in which the resources to rank up champs to combat effective levels relative to the rest of the roster is also limited and expensive. Every single player faces a unique challenge when ranking up roster, unique due to the fact that everyone's roster is in effect randomly generated. For some people, Hood was their best options for certain things, and they invested in Hood because of that fact. Those investments are now lost. This is true even if Hood is now better at other things, because there's no guarantee that those players *needed* those other things.
Maybe Hood is better for a new player picking him up today, and maybe Hood is not better. But that's irrelevant, or should be irrelevant. Those players are getting a better Hood on the backs of other players getting a worse Hood and losing resources they spent in good faith on a champ that changed for no reason.
i say "for no reason" because if there was a need for Hood to lose the utility he lost, that would be one thing. Hypothetically speaking, if losing that utility was the *only way* for Hood to become more relevant to the playerbase at large, then this change would be awful but necessary, and we should all accept that some things are awful but necessary. But it is impossible to make the case that the loss of utility was necessary, because the devs could have added less powerful versions of their new mechanics and kept his original utility, as they don't conflict.
If preservation of player investment was an actual priority with the developers, Hood could have been updated in a way that made him better for everyone.
Instead, the devs played a numbers game. Improve Hood for the masses, and if enough people like it, it doesn't matter how much damage occurs to the people already invested in him.
Whether you like the Hood update or not, whether you think the Hood update makes him more valuable or not, no matter what playtesting eventually shows, I think every player should consider the Hood update dangerous, because it says the devs don't care about pre-existing player investment. They only care about what players will invest in champions in the future. And if the devs continue to update champions with this philosophy, they will eventually take something away you like and for no reason.
I understand there's some grey area here. Most game changes, most champion updates, take something away. Some of that is inevitable. The question is whether what was taken away is sufficiently useful and important that the preservation of investment is important. But I think the Hood change is unambiguously far over the line. There is no question whatsoever that he had important use cases, and there's no question some of them were taken away. Hood is not a grey area case.
Player investment is the responsibility of the player’s not Kabam’s. Kabam has always reserved the right to make any changes they want at any time for any reason and you know this or at least you should. I swear I have never met so many die hard hood fans before today it hilarious. I’ve seen far more people want to quit the game over pulling a 6* hood than jump for joy. Again it’s very presumptuous of you to make this argument before even testing out the changes. For all you know he could still retain his buff control utility but now with more damage
“You want damage? No utility!” “You want utility? No damage!” How about just making balanced characters that can compete with newer ones? The Hood just lacked damage. He doesn’t have to be a top damage dealer. Just give him a little something more and call it a day.
So... When it was announced, that Hood will be somehow changed, i was very optimistic, but on the other hand i knew - just DONT touch what he already has.
So... They touched. Why? For what reason? To give him increased damage - it is just to change some numbers in code.
Wow, change notes have been out for 30 minutes and everyone already knows exactly how this change is going to effect him? Let the release happen, use the champ, then condemn it if it’s warranted
I think the most important aspect of the Hood change is being overlooked, and it is something that while Kam mentions at the end of his video, I don't think he made the direct case for. If I understand Kam's video correctly, Kam makes the case that the devs took away too much relative to what they added back, and that's problematic for the players who invested in Hood for those things the devs took away. From that perspective, maybe we all should wait and see if that's true.
However, I believe that is irrelevant. It doesn't matter if Hood is good or bad. It doesn't matter if the devs added enough, or not enough. The real problem is that Hood's update reflects a toxic design philosophy, and I don't use that word lightly. The philosophy is basically this: we can take away anything we want, as long as we put more stuff back.
This game doesn't work that way, and in fact is moving farther and farther away from that. Usefulness is not linear: we don't have champs that are 8s that are better than 7s. We have champs that are useful in this fight, and champs that are useful in that fight. We have champs good in some situations and not in others. And we have a content design philosophy magnifying those differences in higher tier content. You need a roster with a wide range of capabilities to do all the content coming out.
We no longer live in a world where the devs can turn a champ that is a 4 into a champ that is a 7 and walk away happy. Instead we live in a world where Hood had very specific buff control capabilities that were severely weakened in some aspects, and then had other stuff added. We cannot simply say the stuff added is "better" than the stuff removed, because for the players who were relying upon Hood to do those things that were removed, the champ no longer functions as desired in their specific roster.
This is already problematic in a game where champion acquisition is random, so you have to deal with the hand you're dealt. But this game is also a game in which the resources to rank up champs to combat effective levels relative to the rest of the roster is also limited and expensive. Every single player faces a unique challenge when ranking up roster, unique due to the fact that everyone's roster is in effect randomly generated. For some people, Hood was their best options for certain things, and they invested in Hood because of that fact. Those investments are now lost. This is true even if Hood is now better at other things, because there's no guarantee that those players *needed* those other things.
Maybe Hood is better for a new player picking him up today, and maybe Hood is not better. But that's irrelevant, or should be irrelevant. Those players are getting a better Hood on the backs of other players getting a worse Hood and losing resources they spent in good faith on a champ that changed for no reason.
i say "for no reason" because if there was a need for Hood to lose the utility he lost, that would be one thing. Hypothetically speaking, if losing that utility was the *only way* for Hood to become more relevant to the playerbase at large, then this change would be awful but necessary, and we should all accept that some things are awful but necessary. But it is impossible to make the case that the loss of utility was necessary, because the devs could have added less powerful versions of their new mechanics and kept his original utility, as they don't conflict.
If preservation of player investment was an actual priority with the developers, Hood could have been updated in a way that made him better for everyone.
Instead, the devs played a numbers game. Improve Hood for the masses, and if enough people like it, it doesn't matter how much damage occurs to the people already invested in him.
Whether you like the Hood update or not, whether you think the Hood update makes him more valuable or not, no matter what playtesting eventually shows, I think every player should consider the Hood update dangerous, because it says the devs don't care about pre-existing player investment. They only care about what players will invest in champions in the future. And if the devs continue to update champions with this philosophy, they will eventually take something away you like and for no reason.
I understand there's some grey area here. Most game changes, most champion updates, take something away. Some of that is inevitable. The question is whether what was taken away is sufficiently useful and important that the preservation of investment is important. But I think the Hood change is unambiguously far over the line. There is no question whatsoever that he had important use cases, and there's no question some of them were taken away. Hood is not a grey area case.
Player investment is the responsibility of the player’s not Kabam’s. Kabam has always reserved the right to make any changes they want at any time for any reason and you know this or at least you should. I swear I have never met so many die hard hood fans before today it hilarious. I’ve seen far more people want to quit the game over pulling a 6* hood than jump for joy. Again it’s very presumptuous of you to make this argument before even testing out the changes. For all you know he could still retain his buff control utility but now with more damage
You're right, but what Kabam does with no prior announcement to a champion that you have ranked up for a specific reason isn't on the players because as far as they knew, they didn't know Hood would be changed let alone the very reason people ranked him up for being removed.
Why noone talks about his bullets mechanic? If you use him against an opponent which doesn't proc any buffs (for example Deadpool in which you will use Hood to nullify his regeneration buff), you will be able to place upto 28 staggers (without using your sp2). Let's say that this is 14 combos (M-L-L-L-M). That's about 70 hits (14 combos * 5 hit each combo). What that means? If there is a 400K Deadpool you will probably lose all your staggers before you push him to 20% health. And if you can still somehow nullify his regeneration buff (you were boosted for example), in the next fight you won't be able to use Hood as a reliable nullifier cause he won't have any persistant charges
You do know that Deadpool doesn’t have a regen buff right? His regen is passive and can’t be nullified or fatesealed
Why noone talks about his bullets mechanic? If you use him against an opponent which doesn't proc any buffs (for example Deadpool in which you will use Hood to nullify his regeneration buff), you will be able to place upto 28 staggers (without using your sp2). Let's say that this is 14 combos (M-L-L-L-M). That's about 70 hits (14 combos * 5 hit each combo). What that means? If there is a 400K Deadpool you will probably lose all your staggers before you push him to 20% health. And if you can still somehow nullify his regeneration buff (you were boosted for example), in the next fight you won't be able to use Hood as a reliable nullifier cause he won't have any persistant charges
You do know that Deadpool doesn’t have a regen buff right? His regen is passive and can’t be nullified or fatesealed
I want to see before / after before making a judgement. So many champs over the years we've looked at and said they'll be trash, and we've been surprised, and there's others which have been overhyped from the description, only to disappoint.
Once I've seen the numbers and played him, then I'll decide if I want to complain or not
Bro imagine, u bought a SUV . U want to have some fun going offroad and stuff. Suddenly the car dealer calls u to say that u can get a free upgrade on your car. They took it and wht they gave u back was a sports car. Sports car may not be bad but the reason why u bought a SUV in first place was to drive offroad.
I didnt know how terrible this example was until i completed it . Sry
Why noone talks about his bullets mechanic? If you use him against an opponent which doesn't proc any buffs (for example Deadpool in which you will use Hood to nullify his regeneration buff), you will be able to place upto 28 staggers (without using your sp2). Let's say that this is 14 combos (M-L-L-L-M). That's about 70 hits (14 combos * 5 hit each combo). What that means? If there is a 400K Deadpool you will probably lose all your staggers before you push him to 20% health. And if you can still somehow nullify his regeneration buff (you were boosted for example), in the next fight you won't be able to use Hood as a reliable nullifier cause he won't have any persistant charges
You do know that Deadpool doesn’t have a regen buff right? His regen is passive and can’t be nullified or fatesealed
The regen that is a problem procs as a buff below 20%
Player investment is the responsibility of the player’s not Kabam’s. Kabam has always reserved the right to make any changes they want at any time for any reason and you know this or at least you should. I swear I have never met so many die hard hood fans before today it hilarious. I’ve seen far more people want to quit the game over pulling a 6* hood than jump for joy. Again it’s very presumptuous of you to make this argument before even testing out the changes. For all you know he could still retain his buff control utility but now with more damage
You can see right there his buff control isn't as good, if he can't get rid of pre existing buffs that get past his stagger, and can't have his stagger up as long, still without stacking
There's no guarantee that Champs will do the same thing they used to when you change them.
But perhaps there should be, at least to some degree.
The great irony here is that we want players to think about champions in terms of what they CAN do, not what they CAN'T do. We want players to think about champions in terms of their usefulness, not in terms of their tier. If you pull a champ, and it works, use it. Rank it. Don't wait for the optimal champ, go with the useful ones.
I don't agree with every single tiny point in @Cat_Murdock 's very extensive report on the Hood changes, but I do agree with the vast majority of it, particularly its central points. But I encourage everyone to set all of that aside and just read it, all nine pages of it. You should read it. Here it is again: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11IuBRhchjyTiQDKSIJ5d7Aad6NfqQO0Cs19I_UBH-xk. What do you see?
I see a player passionate about a champ most people consider to be a below average champ (Seatin for example has Hood in tier five of eight tiers, and if anything he's valuing Hood higher than most players). And passionate for all the right reasons. This player looked at the champ, found a strong use case for the champ, and invested time and resources to play the champ and rank up the champ. Cat probably knows more about Hood than I know about my own refrigerator contents. We WANT players to do this. Cat is playing the game the way we want everyone to play the game: to see the champions for what they can do for them, and not focus what other champs might be better.
The Hood update *punishes* those players for investing in suboptimal champs. If you're investing in Doom, you're safe. The devs aren't going to be rebalancing him any time soon. If you're investing in Claire, I'm pretty sure the devs aren't going to be tweaking her abilities this year. But if you want to invest in the Hoods of the game, you're taking a huge risk, because the devs have just signaled that since those champs are not the best at anything, everything they do now can be tossed away at any time.
That's why I called this a toxic design philosophy. It is one thing to nerf an OP champ because you have to, even if you incur the wrath of the playerbase. What are we going to do: stop ranking top tier champs? But when you feel free to scramble the lower tier champs that actually have strong use cases you're telling the playerbase that the best is the only safe thing. You can rank up Hood, but you're an idiot if you do. You should save for Claire, because she's the safe option. Claire is not waiting in line for the devs to take a scalpel to her.
You of all people should be up in arms over this change. A month ago you would probably be telling people Hood is not a poor champion, that he has uses, and people should be ranking up Hood and using him if they need those things. They should ignore spreadsheets, because they are irrelevant. Now, are you going to tell people that if they did that, it sucks to be them because while they should be investing in Hood, they should also be expecting that investment to disappear randomly without any game balance requirement for it to do so? That's ludicrous. We can only expect people to stop focusing on "the best" champs if it is reasonably safe for them to focus on the not-best champs. The Hood update says it is not safe to invest in champs that are underperforming, because they are coming for those champs. And some will see that investment become much better. And some will see that investment become worthless. And if you're one of the players who sees that investment become worthless, they don't care, as long as you're in the minority.
That should be untenable for any ethical game designer. But it is also bad for the game. Because it tells the players that tier lists matter. If you invest in a low tier champion, even if you think the champ is fine, the devs don't care about you or your investments. You picked wrong. That's a horrible message to send, but Kabam unambiguously sent it with this update. Maybe you didn't hear that, but I can assure you the Cat Murdocks of the game heard it loud and clear.
Real question at this point is: Are our rankups safe?
I refuse to believe anyone ranked up Hood for any reason other than the ghost synergy. There’s at least 10 mystics better than him pre-buff.
Hmm, I ranked up Hood to R2 over Sym supreme and Longshot because of his stagger, regen, power steal, fate seal and bleed. My Sym supreme and longshot were unawakened and I don't like using ghost, never bothered to perfect her and did not pull Hood till I had only 6.4 to explore and did not need ghost for that chapter. So, there are people who liked Hood over other mystics.
Guys, they won’t change hood back lol Daredevil Hell’s Kitchen, immortal hulk, Yellowjacket... Everyone cried to kabam saying don’t let these go live, make the change before release lol months later and guess what, no changes and these champions still aren’t used by most of the community (besides immortal hulk, fun rank up but mainly useless IMO)
I feel you here, it's kinda sad. How many Hulks we got in-game and not a single one is top tier champ even Immortal Hulk lol. Unless he's got something the community hasn't figured out but mine is still at r1 cos I'm not hearing good things. I'm not sure if they might fix some stuffs with these guys later on we'd have to wait and see.
My journey with hood and this buff as it stands so far.
Hood was one of my first 6*s opened from a cav crystal. That I later dupped as one of my first 6*s to have the silver stars. I have used him here and there when ever his utility would apply. I wish I could remember all the specific examples but sadly I can not. I do remember using my 5* hood on the champion boss in act 6.2. It was amazing he took off over 50% health my first attempt with him.
Fast forward to the present. I have mystic t4cc and 1 t5b in the overflow. I need to make a mystic rank up. I have personally decided that I will not rank any more 5* unless they are account changing or I have a gem. My mystic choices are... Loki sig 20, Hood sig 20, manthing, and morning star. Honestly the two I have wrestled with are manthing and hood as he is now. But the one thing holding me back from ranking hood was the damage, and the lack of reliability in his invisibility. I have a r5 doom and Clair. I just didn’t personally see myself bringing hood over those two for any particular fights. Which would really make the rank up useless. (I don’t have ghost so not even for a synergy slot)
Upon hearing that hood was going to be buffed and prior to reading the spotlight or watching yt videos, I was elated. This might just solve my rank up dilemma, I thought. If they make his damage higher and tweak his invisibility to actually be like other invisibility in the game he will be perfect! I would defiantly see him claiming a spot on my questing teams over the afore mentioned champs.
Once I had read the spotlight and watched some videos. I felt pretty 50/50. It all sounded kind of good, but I am worried about 3 things. The removed utility... will he even be worthy to reliably remove buffs. The persistent charges that would make him possibly useless against non buff heavy matches as you could easily run out of bullets.. and lastly the fact that his invisibility will still not be like all the other invisibility champs in the game!
If he isn’t good I won’t rank him, and that would be the end of the discussion for me. However what really bothers me is the precedent it sets for buffs moving forward. We have several older champs that really do some things well and better than others!
For example...
1) Ronan: plenty of ppl have ranked this man up for one purpose, to cheese some of the hardest fights in the contest. I personally used him to beat gwenperion in act 7 as a r4 5* sig 60. I also used him for the cap am fight in act 6(prior to the “nerf” of that content). He has been well worth the rank up resources I put into him. Now imagine a Ronan with a higher base damage but a different sig ability that removes his ability to cheese content. Would you play this champ? I wouldn’t. The reason I ranked him was to take care of very specific situations, and he does that so well even at r4.
2) Magik: who I am still convinced is one of the (if not THE) best power control champs in the game. I ranked her specifically for this and her survivability through limbo. Most ppl have passed Magik up based on damage as I have with hood. But imagine a Magik that can not power control as effectively, or that heals less from limbo, but has more base damage. Would you play this champion anymore? I know I wouldn’t. Unless that damage is stupidly op. It would have to be better than doom and Clair in my case.
A scary precedent indeed...
I don’t want to pass judgement until the buff is actually live... but if he is still not better in some meaningful way. I will probably still not rank him. So my question is what was the actual point in the first place of buffing him; If ppl still don’t rank the champ and he is only good as arena fodder? And if the buff turns out to actually be a nerf. I hope Kabam makes it right, and doesn’t use this as a way to remove utility they no longer want in the game...
My journey with hood and this buff as it stands so far.
Hood was one of my first 6*s opened from a cav crystal. That I later dupped as one of my first 6*s to have the silver stars. I have used him here and there when ever his utility would apply. I wish I could remember all the specific examples but sadly I can not. I do remember using my 5* hood on the champion boss in act 6.2. It was amazing he took off over 50% health my first attempt with him.
Fast forward to the present. I have mystic t4cc and 1 t5b in the overflow. I need to make a mystic rank up. I have personally decided that I will not rank any more 5* unless they are account changing or I have a gem. My mystic choices are... Loki sig 20, Hood sig 20, manthing, and morning star. Honestly the two I have wrestled with are manthing and hood as he is now. But the one thing holding me back from ranking hood was the damage, and the lack of reliability in his invisibility. I have a r5 doom and Clair. I just didn’t personally see myself bringing hood over those two for any particular fights. Which would really make the rank up useless. (I don’t have ghost so not even for a synergy slot)
Upon hearing that hood was going to be buffed and prior to reading the spotlight or watching yt videos, I was elated. This might just solve my rank up dilemma, I thought. If they make his damage higher and tweak his invisibility to actually be like other invisibility in the game he will be perfect! I would defiantly see him claiming a spot on my questing teams over the afore mentioned champs.
Once I had read the spotlight and watched some videos. I felt pretty 50/50. It all sounded kind of good, but I am worried about 3 things. The removed utility... will he even be worthy to reliably remove buffs. The persistent charges that would make him possibly useless against non buff heavy matches as you could easily run out of bullets.. and lastly the fact that his invisibility will still not be like all the other invisibility champs in the game!
If he isn’t good I won’t rank him, and that would be the end of the discussion for me. However what really bothers me is the precedent it sets for buffs moving forward. We have several older champs that really do some things well and better than others!
For example...
1) Ronan: plenty of ppl have ranked this man up for one purpose, to cheese some of the hardest fights in the contest. I personally used him to beat gwenperion in act 7 as a r4 5* sig 60. I also used him for the cap am fight in act 6(prior to the “nerf” of that content). He has been well worth the rank up resources I put into him. Now imagine a Ronan with a higher base damage but a different sig ability that removes his ability to cheese content. Would you play this champ? I wouldn’t. The reason I ranked him was to take care of very specific situations, and he does that so well even at r4.
2) Magik: who I am still convinced is one of the (if not THE) best power control champs in the game. I ranked her specifically for this and her survivability through limbo. Most ppl have passed Magik up based on damage as I have with hood. But imagine a Magik that can not power control as effectively, or that heals less from limbo, but has more base damage. Would you play this champion anymore? I know I wouldn’t. Unless that damage is stupidly op. It would have to be better than doom and Clair in my case.
A scary precedent indeed...
I don’t want to pass judgement until the buff is actually live... but if he is still not better in some meaningful way. I will probably still not rank him. So my question is what was the actual point in the first place of buffing him; If ppl still don’t rank the champ and he is only good as arena fodder? And if the buff turns out to actually be a nerf. I hope Kabam makes it right, and doesn’t use this as a way to remove utility they no longer want in the game...
Comments
These are not the words of a player who ranked up Hood for synergy purposes. And where there is one @Cat_Murdock there is guaranteed to be dozens or hundreds more.
And as is being discussed in the other thread, "better" doesn't matter any more. "Better at what" is what matters now. Hood was pretty good at buff control, and there are not ten mystics objectively better than Hood available as 6* rarity at controlling buff-heavy fights. The vast majority of players might have only one or two of those until their roster gets very wide.
So... They touched. Why? For what reason? To give him increased damage - it is just to change some numbers in code.
Dissapointation beyond frustration
Hood was one of my first 6*s opened from a cav crystal. That I later dupped as one of my first 6*s to have the silver stars. I have used him here and there when ever his utility would apply. I wish I could remember all the specific examples but sadly I can not. I do remember using my 5* hood on the champion boss in act 6.2. It was amazing he took off over 50% health my first attempt with him.
Fast forward to the present. I have mystic t4cc and 1 t5b in the overflow. I need to make a mystic rank up. I have personally decided that I will not rank any more 5* unless they are account changing or I have a gem. My mystic choices are... Loki sig 20, Hood sig 20, manthing, and morning star. Honestly the two I have wrestled with are manthing and hood as he is now. But the one thing holding me back from ranking hood was the damage, and the lack of reliability in his invisibility. I have a r5 doom and Clair. I just didn’t personally see myself bringing hood over those two for any particular fights. Which would really make the rank up useless. (I don’t have ghost so not even for a synergy slot)
Upon hearing that hood was going to be buffed and prior to reading the spotlight or watching yt videos, I was elated. This might just solve my rank up dilemma, I thought. If they make his damage higher and tweak his invisibility to actually be like other invisibility in the game he will be perfect! I would defiantly see him claiming a spot on my questing teams over the afore mentioned champs.
Once I had read the spotlight and watched some videos. I felt pretty 50/50. It all sounded kind of good, but I am worried about 3 things. The removed utility... will he even be worthy to reliably remove buffs. The persistent charges that would make him possibly useless against non buff heavy matches as you could easily run out of bullets.. and lastly the fact that his invisibility will still not be like all the other invisibility champs in the game!
If he isn’t good I won’t rank him, and that would be the end of the discussion for me. However what really bothers me is the precedent it sets for buffs moving forward. We have several older champs that really do some things well and better than others!
For example...
1) Ronan: plenty of ppl have ranked this man up for one purpose, to cheese some of the hardest fights in the contest. I personally used him to beat gwenperion in act 7 as a r4 5* sig 60. I also used him for the cap am fight in act 6(prior to the “nerf” of that content). He has been well worth the rank up resources I put into him. Now imagine a Ronan with a higher base damage but a different sig ability that removes his ability to cheese content. Would you play this champ? I wouldn’t. The reason I ranked him was to take care of very specific situations, and he does that so well even at r4.
2) Magik: who I am still convinced is one of the (if not THE) best power control champs in the game. I ranked her specifically for this and her survivability through limbo. Most ppl have passed Magik up based on damage as I have with hood. But imagine a Magik that can not power control as effectively, or that heals less from limbo, but has more base damage. Would you play this champion anymore? I know I wouldn’t. Unless that damage is stupidly op. It would have to be better than doom and Clair in my case.
A scary precedent indeed...
I don’t want to pass judgement until the buff is actually live... but if he is still not better in some meaningful way. I will probably still not rank him. So my question is what was the actual point in the first place of buffing him; If ppl still don’t rank the champ and he is only good as arena fodder? And if the buff turns out to actually be a nerf. I hope Kabam makes it right, and doesn’t use this as a way to remove utility they no longer want in the game...
If you read all of that... thank you 😅