DDHK is the most undervalued champ in the entire game
magnus_xix
Member Posts: 2,026 ★★★★★
I've been seeing a lot of hate on the boy DDHK but hopefully by the end of this thread you can learn a thing or two about him decide to change your mind if you are one of those people.
Core abilities
• Combo meter isn’t reset when struck
• Regen rate is set at 40%
• Immune to regen rate modification (petrify, spectre, despair and even the healing reduction from HT’s incinerates
• Access to bleeds and disorient
• Strong AAR
• Shrug off non-damaging debuffs
• IMMUNE TO MISS
Champion Rotation
He has 2 modes. Murdock's Boy and Stick's Apprentice. Knowing how and when to switch modes according the requirements you need is essential.
There are two ways in which you can best utilise him. If you need shrugging off non-damaging debuffs as a piece of utility, do the following rotation:
Throw heavies and sp2s when you have between 16-21 hits on the combo meter. This will allow you to stay in Murdock's Boy for the majority of the fight and shrug off one of each non-damaging debuff with a 2 second cooldown. He has 3150 (60%) physical resistance in this mode. Couple that with his sig ability, which I'll get to later, and he is extremely sustainable.
If you need defensive ability accuracy reduction (DAAR) as piece of utility, then do the following things:
Throw heavies when you have between 21-25 hits on the combo meter. Doing this will consume 10 hits on the combo meter and give you a cruelty buff increasing crit damage by 440. After, you'll be left with 11-15 combo meter and less than one combo away from getting back into Stick's Apprentice. As for the sp2, its best thrown when you have between 25-30 hits on the combo meter. Doing so will consume up to 15 hits and inflict a bleed dealing 3017 (125% of base attack) direct damage over 5 seconds. Furthermore, this special will put you back into Murdock's Boy and also give you a rage debuff. Once this rage ends for whatever reason, it is replaced with a fury buff granting 1931 (80%) attack rating. Because you entered Murdock's Boy, the rage debuff will get purified instantly giving you the fury buff and 5 hits on the combo meter putting you back into Stick's Apprentice. This mode also gives any debuffs applied to you +603 (25%) attack rating. This attack rating is subject to diminishing returns meaning the increase in attack becomes less the more debuffs you have.
For long fights (ROL, LOL, and Act 7 bosses) you want to go for the sp3 first, doing heavies at the appropriate times, then do sp2s only. For shorter fights stick to sp2s. The sp3 is a nice bonus to your overall DPS but I haven't found it to be worth it in the longer matchups. The sp1 is useful for the scenarios where you need more buffs on yourself. I throw sp1s in between consecutive sp2s but there's no reason for you to do it too. I only do it because I like the animation of it.
Failing to throw heavies and sp2s will not gimp your damage output in any meaningful way. You'll lose the opportunity to capitalise on the rage from his sig but you can easily get it in another combo or two.
Useful synergies
DDHK’s best synergies are with Kingpin and Elektra/Psylocke. The Kingpin synergy gives you a rage debuff for 5 seconds with a 50% chance of activation whenever you take a blocked hit allowing you to get to Stick’s Apprentice that much faster and giving you a nice damage boost for when you’re in that mode. The Elektra/Psylocke synergy gives your heavy attacks a 35% disorient. Combine this AAR with Stick’s Apprentice and you have yourself -100% DAAR. These two synergies may not seem significant on paper but when you combine the two, they give DDHK the ability to get -100% DAAR at the start of the fight without having to land a single hit provided you take a couple of blocked hits at the start but remember he has 3150 physical resistance which lowers all damage taken from physical attack by roughly 60% and upon leaving Murdock’s Boy he’ll get a rage debuff healing any damage you took getting into Stick’s Apprentice thanks to his sig. Sounds pretty good if you ask me. The Masacre synergy I’ve found to be pretty useless and finicky but it’s a good alternative if you don’t havr Kingpin.
Other useful synergies are his ones with SG/Punisher. This one causes the enemies attacks to miss for 1.5 seconds. It helps you with landing heavies at the right time without any repercussions but the more you play DDHK the more you’ll become aware and known when the best times to land a heavy are. A good training wheel if you will. Avoiding getting hit by tricky to evade special attacks is another major perk about this synergy. The Moleman synergy gives you +600 crit damage at the start of the fight which is nice boost to your overall DPS. This one sort of renders the synergy with OG Cap/Nightcrawler/Ghost Rider useless because of the way crit damage scales in this game. The Hit-monkey is another nice to have member of your team. He’ll give you 100% perfect block chance against special attacks that entail non-contact projectiles. Some examples of these are War Machine’s sp1, Punisher’s sp1 & sp2 and Domino’s sp1. The final nice to have synergy is the She-hulk/Ronan/OG Daredevil synergy which gives your special attacks a 25% chance to stun. This stun duration is 1.25 seconds per special attack. Probably the least important synergy of them all.
Awakened vs Unawakened, High sig vs Low sig & 5* vs 6*
At first glance the awakened ability seems to be one those where you need sig 200 or its worthless but it actually not. What the sig does is leaving Murdock’s Boy will give you a rage debuff. Its duration is 5-17 seconds. At sig 60 the rage lasts for roughly 10 seconds which is more than enough time for you maintain close to 100% uptime on it. The part of his sig ability is that all hits in Stick’s Apprentice bypass damage back effects by 50-100%. This part of the sig ability may seem essential but, the Kingpin and Elektra/Psylocke covers similar ground but not entirely the same. So in conclusion, it’s nice to have him awakened and at relatively low sig and if you plan to him a lot with the previously mentioned synergies, he does not a high sig.
The ugly side of DDHK
The biggest drawback of DDHK and by far the biggest reason people don’t rank him up is his compatibility with the suicide masteries. His base regen rate is set to 40% meaning willpower is not as effective as it would at mitigating the bleed, poison or any DoT effect .He does not mesh well with suicides whatsoever. You’ll die from the poison in under 5 minutes of total fight time. In the Netflix show he was getting beaten up every episode and was in need of stitches constantly so I guess it kind of makes sense why he would be so potion hungry in MCOC if you were to use him.
Another drawback is he is reliant on his synergy with Kingpin and Psylocke making him unrealistic to run in AQ and AW. Having said that, the constant willpower regen is sweet for AQ, Kingpin is certainly no slouch and Psylocke provides the team a piece of utility that neither DDHK nor Kingoin possess – power control. This leaves 2 other champion slots for whatever else you may need. Also he has the AW:Damage over time tag which could be useful in the future.
To round off this post I thought it would be nice to list as many worthwile champions and nodes he can counter with or without synergies as I possibly can. So here goes.
Champions
Nodes
Core abilities
• Combo meter isn’t reset when struck
• Regen rate is set at 40%
• Immune to regen rate modification (petrify, spectre, despair and even the healing reduction from HT’s incinerates
• Access to bleeds and disorient
• Strong AAR
• Shrug off non-damaging debuffs
• IMMUNE TO MISS
Champion Rotation
He has 2 modes. Murdock's Boy and Stick's Apprentice. Knowing how and when to switch modes according the requirements you need is essential.
There are two ways in which you can best utilise him. If you need shrugging off non-damaging debuffs as a piece of utility, do the following rotation:
Throw heavies and sp2s when you have between 16-21 hits on the combo meter. This will allow you to stay in Murdock's Boy for the majority of the fight and shrug off one of each non-damaging debuff with a 2 second cooldown. He has 3150 (60%) physical resistance in this mode. Couple that with his sig ability, which I'll get to later, and he is extremely sustainable.
If you need defensive ability accuracy reduction (DAAR) as piece of utility, then do the following things:
Throw heavies when you have between 21-25 hits on the combo meter. Doing this will consume 10 hits on the combo meter and give you a cruelty buff increasing crit damage by 440. After, you'll be left with 11-15 combo meter and less than one combo away from getting back into Stick's Apprentice. As for the sp2, its best thrown when you have between 25-30 hits on the combo meter. Doing so will consume up to 15 hits and inflict a bleed dealing 3017 (125% of base attack) direct damage over 5 seconds. Furthermore, this special will put you back into Murdock's Boy and also give you a rage debuff. Once this rage ends for whatever reason, it is replaced with a fury buff granting 1931 (80%) attack rating. Because you entered Murdock's Boy, the rage debuff will get purified instantly giving you the fury buff and 5 hits on the combo meter putting you back into Stick's Apprentice. This mode also gives any debuffs applied to you +603 (25%) attack rating. This attack rating is subject to diminishing returns meaning the increase in attack becomes less the more debuffs you have.
For long fights (ROL, LOL, and Act 7 bosses) you want to go for the sp3 first, doing heavies at the appropriate times, then do sp2s only. For shorter fights stick to sp2s. The sp3 is a nice bonus to your overall DPS but I haven't found it to be worth it in the longer matchups. The sp1 is useful for the scenarios where you need more buffs on yourself. I throw sp1s in between consecutive sp2s but there's no reason for you to do it too. I only do it because I like the animation of it.
Failing to throw heavies and sp2s will not gimp your damage output in any meaningful way. You'll lose the opportunity to capitalise on the rage from his sig but you can easily get it in another combo or two.
Useful synergies
DDHK’s best synergies are with Kingpin and Elektra/Psylocke. The Kingpin synergy gives you a rage debuff for 5 seconds with a 50% chance of activation whenever you take a blocked hit allowing you to get to Stick’s Apprentice that much faster and giving you a nice damage boost for when you’re in that mode. The Elektra/Psylocke synergy gives your heavy attacks a 35% disorient. Combine this AAR with Stick’s Apprentice and you have yourself -100% DAAR. These two synergies may not seem significant on paper but when you combine the two, they give DDHK the ability to get -100% DAAR at the start of the fight without having to land a single hit provided you take a couple of blocked hits at the start but remember he has 3150 physical resistance which lowers all damage taken from physical attack by roughly 60% and upon leaving Murdock’s Boy he’ll get a rage debuff healing any damage you took getting into Stick’s Apprentice thanks to his sig. Sounds pretty good if you ask me. The Masacre synergy I’ve found to be pretty useless and finicky but it’s a good alternative if you don’t havr Kingpin.
Other useful synergies are his ones with SG/Punisher. This one causes the enemies attacks to miss for 1.5 seconds. It helps you with landing heavies at the right time without any repercussions but the more you play DDHK the more you’ll become aware and known when the best times to land a heavy are. A good training wheel if you will. Avoiding getting hit by tricky to evade special attacks is another major perk about this synergy. The Moleman synergy gives you +600 crit damage at the start of the fight which is nice boost to your overall DPS. This one sort of renders the synergy with OG Cap/Nightcrawler/Ghost Rider useless because of the way crit damage scales in this game. The Hit-monkey is another nice to have member of your team. He’ll give you 100% perfect block chance against special attacks that entail non-contact projectiles. Some examples of these are War Machine’s sp1, Punisher’s sp1 & sp2 and Domino’s sp1. The final nice to have synergy is the She-hulk/Ronan/OG Daredevil synergy which gives your special attacks a 25% chance to stun. This stun duration is 1.25 seconds per special attack. Probably the least important synergy of them all.
Awakened vs Unawakened, High sig vs Low sig & 5* vs 6*
At first glance the awakened ability seems to be one those where you need sig 200 or its worthless but it actually not. What the sig does is leaving Murdock’s Boy will give you a rage debuff. Its duration is 5-17 seconds. At sig 60 the rage lasts for roughly 10 seconds which is more than enough time for you maintain close to 100% uptime on it. The part of his sig ability is that all hits in Stick’s Apprentice bypass damage back effects by 50-100%. This part of the sig ability may seem essential but, the Kingpin and Elektra/Psylocke covers similar ground but not entirely the same. So in conclusion, it’s nice to have him awakened and at relatively low sig and if you plan to him a lot with the previously mentioned synergies, he does not a high sig.
The ugly side of DDHK
The biggest drawback of DDHK and by far the biggest reason people don’t rank him up is his compatibility with the suicide masteries. His base regen rate is set to 40% meaning willpower is not as effective as it would at mitigating the bleed, poison or any DoT effect .He does not mesh well with suicides whatsoever. You’ll die from the poison in under 5 minutes of total fight time. In the Netflix show he was getting beaten up every episode and was in need of stitches constantly so I guess it kind of makes sense why he would be so potion hungry in MCOC if you were to use him.
Another drawback is he is reliant on his synergy with Kingpin and Psylocke making him unrealistic to run in AQ and AW. Having said that, the constant willpower regen is sweet for AQ, Kingpin is certainly no slouch and Psylocke provides the team a piece of utility that neither DDHK nor Kingoin possess – power control. This leaves 2 other champion slots for whatever else you may need. Also he has the AW:Damage over time tag which could be useful in the future.
To round off this post I thought it would be nice to list as many worthwile champions and nodes he can counter with or without synergies as I possibly can. So here goes.
Champions
Abom’s poisons
Ibom’s poisons (long as he doesn’t make contact with you then no poisons)
Aegon’s furies
Airwalker’s darktide debuffs
Annihilus’s stifles and armour breaks
BPCW’s armour up and can shrug off the reflected parry stun if in Murdock’s Boy
BWDO’s evade
Civil warrior’s armour ups (needs more testing)
Cable’s regen and power gain
DH’s autoblock and miss
Dr doom’s resist and won’t be able to nullify you buffs as long as he doesn’t make contact with you
Ebony Maw’s falter
Electro’s damage back
Emma Frost’s protection from her sig ability
Ghost’s phase
Green goblin’s Cunning and Madness
Guardians autoblock
Gwenpool’s inability to die from specials
Heimdall’s autoblock
Hela’s cheat death
Hit-monkey’s evade
iHulk’s immortality
Hulkbuster’s shock and regen
HT’s incinerates
IW’s miss
IMIW’s armour ups – no armour ups = no power gain
Killmonger’s reverb
King Groot’s build-up of furies
Korg’s thorns
Luke Cage’s indestructible
Modok’s auto block (has increased ability so may get autoblocked sometimes)
Magik’s limbo
Magneto (X) prowess build-up
Man-thing’s poison (same criteria as ibom’s poison)
Mangog’s on hit hatred stacks (needs more testing)
Medusa’s autoblock
Mole-man’s unstoppable
Moonknight’s evade
Mordo’s evade (could be bug coz Mordo is immune to passive AAR)
Morningstar’s bleed
Mysterio’s miss and can shrug off his power drain if in Murdock’s boy
NF’s tactical charges
NC’s evade
Nova’s autoblock
Professor X’s falter
Punisher’s cheat death
Punisher 2099’s regen
Sabretooth’s regen
SW’s poison
Spider-verse champs’ evade
Stryfe’s invisibility
Super skrull’s armour ups (needs more testing)
Sym Supreme’s protection
Hood’s invisibilty
Thing’s rock stack
Ultrons’ evade
Wasp’s evade
Wolverines’ regen
Yellowjacket’s damage back and can shrug off his power stings if in Murdock’s Boy
Ibom’s poisons (long as he doesn’t make contact with you then no poisons)
Aegon’s furies
Airwalker’s darktide debuffs
Annihilus’s stifles and armour breaks
BPCW’s armour up and can shrug off the reflected parry stun if in Murdock’s Boy
BWDO’s evade
Civil warrior’s armour ups (needs more testing)
Cable’s regen and power gain
DH’s autoblock and miss
Dr doom’s resist and won’t be able to nullify you buffs as long as he doesn’t make contact with you
Ebony Maw’s falter
Electro’s damage back
Emma Frost’s protection from her sig ability
Ghost’s phase
Green goblin’s Cunning and Madness
Guardians autoblock
Gwenpool’s inability to die from specials
Heimdall’s autoblock
Hela’s cheat death
Hit-monkey’s evade
iHulk’s immortality
Hulkbuster’s shock and regen
HT’s incinerates
IW’s miss
IMIW’s armour ups – no armour ups = no power gain
Killmonger’s reverb
King Groot’s build-up of furies
Korg’s thorns
Luke Cage’s indestructible
Modok’s auto block (has increased ability so may get autoblocked sometimes)
Magik’s limbo
Magneto (X) prowess build-up
Man-thing’s poison (same criteria as ibom’s poison)
Mangog’s on hit hatred stacks (needs more testing)
Medusa’s autoblock
Mole-man’s unstoppable
Moonknight’s evade
Mordo’s evade (could be bug coz Mordo is immune to passive AAR)
Morningstar’s bleed
Mysterio’s miss and can shrug off his power drain if in Murdock’s boy
NF’s tactical charges
NC’s evade
Nova’s autoblock
Professor X’s falter
Punisher’s cheat death
Punisher 2099’s regen
Sabretooth’s regen
SW’s poison
Spider-verse champs’ evade
Stryfe’s invisibility
Super skrull’s armour ups (needs more testing)
Sym Supreme’s protection
Hood’s invisibilty
Thing’s rock stack
Ultrons’ evade
Wasp’s evade
Wolverines’ regen
Yellowjacket’s damage back and can shrug off his power stings if in Murdock’s Boy
Nodes
Adaptive
Arrogance
Aspect of genesis (needs more testing)
Backblast
Back up recovery (stops power gain but not the regen)
Biohazard
Bleed vulnerability
Buff imbalance (shrugs off the debuffs if in Murdock’s Boy
Can’t touch this
Caustic temper (yes a 6.2.2 Mr Sinister counter. Far from the best tho)
Combo party
Counter tactics
Dismay
Encroaching stun (have to be careful here)
Explosive personality
Faltering mind
Flux dispersal
Freezer burn
Gassed (shrugs off fatigue in Murdock’s boy)
Gauss warp
Gimme (fights will be long)
Insecurity (shrugs off the taunt)
Lazarus
Lifecycle (DDHK uses a lot of heavies in his rotation)
Mesmerise
Micro-reflect
Mix Master
Now you see me
One eye open (needs testing)
Parry
Physical perfection (retains 100% of his attack coz he’s a skill champ)
Protection shielding
Psychic thorns
Resistor
Safeguard
Sixth sense
Spectre
Spiked armour
Spry
Stung once twice shy
Tantrum
Terminal Velocity (needs more testing)
Tunnel vision
Window of opportunity – stun (should be able to shrug off the stun but needs testing)
Arrogance
Aspect of genesis (needs more testing)
Backblast
Back up recovery (stops power gain but not the regen)
Biohazard
Bleed vulnerability
Buff imbalance (shrugs off the debuffs if in Murdock’s Boy
Can’t touch this
Caustic temper (yes a 6.2.2 Mr Sinister counter. Far from the best tho)
Combo party
Counter tactics
Dismay
Encroaching stun (have to be careful here)
Explosive personality
Faltering mind
Flux dispersal
Freezer burn
Gassed (shrugs off fatigue in Murdock’s boy)
Gauss warp
Gimme (fights will be long)
Insecurity (shrugs off the taunt)
Lazarus
Lifecycle (DDHK uses a lot of heavies in his rotation)
Mesmerise
Micro-reflect
Mix Master
Now you see me
One eye open (needs testing)
Parry
Physical perfection (retains 100% of his attack coz he’s a skill champ)
Protection shielding
Psychic thorns
Resistor
Safeguard
Sixth sense
Spectre
Spiked armour
Spry
Stung once twice shy
Tantrum
Terminal Velocity (needs more testing)
Tunnel vision
Window of opportunity – stun (should be able to shrug off the stun but needs testing)
37
Comments
Nice job though very informative
https://www.dunres.sk/mcoc/buffs/
The act 7 nodes are missing however
No skill champ comes close to Nick and Aegon. None.
Beautiful write up... but before you finish...
DDHK is not a top 2 skill champ. Maybe top 10-12
On another note his rotation can be simplified to this "Throw heavies when you have ~12 hits on the combo meter and the sp2 when you have ~27. Throw sp3 if you're in a long fight"
Dr. Zola
top 2 skill is more of a stretch than mr fantastic
Aegon is much, much better