Just a Sidepiece for Corvus? A Proxima Midnight Guide.
Rockypantherx
Member Posts: 3,916 ★★★★★
Yep, me again. I know it’s been a while but what can I say? Uni’s a pain. Today I wanted to write up a guide for one of my favourite champs, Proxima Midnight.
Now, Proxima was hyped to all hell when she first released. People saw 1,000,000 SP2’s and went bananas. As they usually do for big yellow numbers. Admittedly, so did I. I remember sitting in a cramped hut on holiday in the North of Scotland when the first CCP videos released and scrambling to mop up all the content I could concerning her.
But, over time, the hype for her almost completely died. She was impractical, squishy, and lacked meaningful utility. She was relegated to Corvus’ sidepiece, as his popularity grew, and grew, and grew.
And yet, as her hype waned, I began to like her even more. She was a high skill/high reward champ, that had some interesting utility, and great animations.
I was lucky enough to pull the 5* the week she was added to the basic, after completing Act 5 for the first time. Later, I would get stupidly lucky and pull the 6* from a basic cav crystal, only a few weeks after they initially released. Now that 6* is R2, with a view to a possible R3 in the future, if I ever dupe her.
Base Stats:
Let’s begin by covering her base stats. She’s a very mixed bag in this department. Her attack and crit rate are decently above average, while her crit damage isn’t too shabby either. While she doesn’t have flashy basic attacks normally, she actually hits surprisingly hard at her base.
However, her Health and Block Proficiency are way below average, hence her reputation as squishy. For perspective, Cull’s block proficiency is only 3% higher. She’s not quite as bad as he is, but it’s noticeable. This is the first major flaw of the champ as her playstyle and utility is built around blocking, leading her to lose a decent chunk of health to chip damage.
Missions From Thanos:
Like the rest of the Black Order, her kit is centred around ‘Missions From Thanos’. She has 3 total missions, which she gets in a random order, and you have to complete them one at a time.
Confusingly, her missions are numbered, despite usually not appearing in order. They also don’t repeat. Once a mission is complete, it’s not going to appear in the fight again.
So, her ‘first mission’ requires her to parry the opponent 6 times. This is definitely the easiest one to achieve and will occur in the normal course of gameplay. However, there are a couple of tricks that can help you complete this mission easier.
Firstly, reparries wherever possible. There are guides on Youtube that can explain this better than I possibly could, but it’s basically just holding and letting go of block in perfect timing in order to activate parry on every hit of a combo or special. It’s useful for mitigating block damage in stun immune matchups, when you need openings but don’t want them to throw a special, or reducing damage taken from specials you can’t avoid. But with Proxima, it’s also going to count towards this mission
Secondly, parrying immediately after a parry stun ends. This takes a bit of practice, but it’s helpful for getting this mission out of the way without dealing with the opponent’s specials. It won’t always work since it’s AI dependent, but most of the time they’ll try and attack you as soon as the stun from parry wears off. It’s up to you to achieve that timing and repeat the process until the mission is complete
Thirdly, and this is kind of part of reparrying, but parrying specials instead of dexing them. Obviously, only do this when the block damage isn’t going to hurt too much, but it’s another way to complete the mission.
This mission really epitomises why Proxima’s kit doesn’t really work. This mission requires you to block, excessively, but her block proficiency is super low. If anything, it should be a very high block proficiency if this is to come together well. During the course of this mission, you might end up taking 5-10% of your health, and that adds up over a quest.
Her ‘second mission’ requires you to intercept 4 times. Annoyingly, it only counts dash intercepts. This is the kind of intercept where they are dashing at you and you interrupt that attack. So special intercepts, sidestepping, banking, none of that works here. Which makes it much riskier, and more difficult. I do have a few pointers for this mission as well.
Light intercepts do count. They’re a bit more difficult to time, and require practice, but they’re a lot less risky if you can get them down. It means you won't get countered if they decide to not dash at you. Backdraft intercepts are also your friend here.
Secondly, I quite like the rhythm of backing into my corner, banking, using two light attacks, dashing back, then light intercepting and doing one additional light hit. Enemies seem to get more aggressive because you’re close to the wall, so use it to your advantage and keep them close. This again takes practice, but it’s super satisfying to pull off.
Which leads me to my final tip for this mission. The difficulty of this mission depends on the AI. In ROL, this mission is hell since they are programmed with a passive AI. In act 6/7, you’re probably going to have a better time completing this mission. I would say this makes her an unfriendly champ for new players and the content they’re up against due to the AI profile, but the very nature of this mission makes her somewhat unfriendly to new players anyway.
Her ‘third’ and final mission requires Proxima to knock down the opponent 5 times with a heavy or special attack. I would recommend not using a Special attack to complete this mission if you can help it. We’ll get into why later, but for now, just know that dumping Proxima’s power generally isn’t advisable
For most fights, this mission is simply parry-heavy, like a million other champs at this point (Also plays into the whole block proficiency issue). Get into the habit of countering the opponents heavy and special attacks where possible, like buffed Crossbones, in order to mitigate block damage, and get this mission done quicker
“But Rocky!”, I don’t hear anyone asking, “Why do I want to complete her annoying missions!? Why can’t I just hit things!?”
Well, random person on the internet who did not ask (and I hope you’re having a nice day), completing her missions does 3 things.
1. Every time you complete an action associated with a mission, so that is a parry, an intercept, or a knockdown, you get a true accuracy passive for 5 seconds. This passive allows you to bypass evade and autoblock, two very annoying defensive mechanics. Now, Proxima is definitely not the best evade/autoblock counter. But I do love how accessible this is, for the most part, and if you have no other options, this can get you through
2.a) She gains a massive freaking prowess buff. First, she gains a prowess buff for 10 seconds. This gives you +250% special attack damage for each mission completed in the fight. So after one mission, it’s 250%, second: 500%, third: 750%. Really, really big prowess. It’s more a mutant class type ability but let’s not get bogged down in that.
b) When this 10 second prowess expires, she gains a permanent prowess buff, granting 200% special attack damage. So still massive. After 3 completed missions, you’ll permanently have +600% special attack damage.
3. After the 10 second prowess expires, that is when your next random mission appears. So essentially, there is a 10 second window between completing a mission and getting a new one, a window where your special attack damage gets actually stupid. Makes CGR look like Ebony Maw. I should mention that if this buff is removed before it expires, whether that be a node or nullify, she’ll immediately get her next set of missions.
And that’s it for Proxima’s missions. Next, let’s discuss her other 2 base mechanics, before moving onto the special attacks.
Safeguard:
Proxima has a really interesting ability to gain a safeguard buff. It activates when you have at least 30 hits in your combo meter, and you’re attacked by a projectile. When it activates, it prevents her from losing more than 3% of her max health from a single source for 4 seconds.
Now, theoretically, it caps the damage you can take from any hit at 3% for its duration, even SP3’s. In practicality, however, it doesn’t last long enough and she’s rarely getting attacked by projectiles.
But, if you’re worried about the block damage from a special attack, or a champion with projectiles in their combo, use Ghost or power control Proxima
On Block:
However, Proxima’s most unique, and arguably most useful ability, is tied to her block. Proxima can parry non-contact attacks, like Iron Man (Infinity War) or Havok. Additionally, opponents also suffer -200% offensive ability accuracy when hitting into her block. One of the most notable uses of this ability is bypassing Masochism, but it also does a lot of niche stuff, like stopping Apocalypse stunning you through block. (Sidenote: This in combination with the safeguard, makes her a surprisingly good Apoc counter. Munash has a full solo of Map 7 Apoc on his channel)
I could list a lot of things here, but it’s probably best to link you BeroMan’s video on it as he does a great job finding most of the interactions. I’m sure there are a few no one has discovered yet, but it’s the most comprehensive list I’ve seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JayxbWIL8
But of course, she’s super squishy through block. So once again, we have her main utility based on a style of gameplay that loses you to lose a bunch of health. It just doesn’t work.
And that’s it for Proxima’s base abilities, let’s get into her special attacks.
Special Attacks:
Her Special 1 gains +170% attack if the opponent is under the effects of a regeneration buff or passive. Because what Proxima really needs is more damage.
It also inflicts a heal block for 7 seconds. This isn’t a super practical healing counter as its uptime isn’t high enough, and there are also better options. But, if your combo is over 50 hits, its duration is doubled to 14 seconds, which means you can usually get close to 100% uptime from that point onwards
Of course, the problem is you need to get to 50 hits, and at that point, a lot of champs are doing it much better. It’s also susceptible to shrug off, duration reducing, etc. Still, it’s a nice bit of utility to have access to if you need it, although to be honest, she could probably out-damage the healing better than she could block it.
The Special 2 stuns for 2 seconds. That’s it. If you’re desperate to complete the knockdown mission you can land a heavy within the stun, although I would wonder why you’re not just parry-heavying at that point. It’s a long enough stun to get a double medium in before starting your next combo, so there is that. This is basically you’re big damage special, and it’s capable of putting up some stupid numbers if it crits
However, I opt for the SP3 when going for damage. It’s guaranteed and fits into my preferred rotation nicer. It has a 100% chance to stun for 6 seconds at base, a very long stun, only beaten by Aegon in normal fights. It’s enough for 2 5 hit combos, a double medium, and start your next combo with a light attack. That should land you at an SP1 if they are somehow still alive
It also applies a pretty decent armour break for 7 seconds, removing one armour up and reducing armour by 2100 on a 5/65 5*.
We’ve now got to talk about her Signature ability, which I’m in two minds about.
Signature Ability:
First of all, it adds a 4th mission. That mission is to reach 100 hits on the combo meter.
So you get the usual prowess stuff that we discussed earlier in her kit, but the true accuracy becomes permanent, and she gains a pretty massive fury buff for each mission already completed.
The main issue with this ability is that you need to reach 100 hits. The permanent true accuracy would be incredible. If it wasn’t behind 100 hits. Chances are you’re not going to be able to space your missions out across the 100 hits to keep the true accuracy active until then, so it just kind of...falls apart.
Now, the damage that results from this mission is mental, especially in her optimum rotation. But you get a 1000% prowess buff upon reaching 100 hits, and the furies add up to over 200% of base attack at max sig. So really, if you reach this point, throwing a special while this prowess is active should kill anything.
Rotation:
Proxima basically has 3 rotations.
1. If you need heal block, spam SP1, completing missions as you go.
2. If your Proxima is unawakened (like mine), hold onto your power and line up an SP3 with completing your third mission. This will give you a guaranteed 1150% damage SP3, without the crit RNG of the SP2, and the amount of hits it typically takes to complete those missions tends to line up better with being at 3 bars of power rather than having to play around to stay at 2
3. When your Proxima is duped, the rotation changes. Ideally, you want to complete your first 2 missions as soon as possible, while racking up as many hits as possible. Your Sig ability mission can be completed at the same time as your other missions, so you want to complete your third mission just before reaching 100 hits. What this does is overlap the 2 massive prowess buffs. You have the 750% prowess from completing your third mission, the 2 200% prowess buffs from your first 2 missions, the max amount of furies, and a 1000% prowess buff from the sig ability. All for a grand total of around 200% extra base attack, and 2150% prowess. If you use the SP3, as I would advise you to, you’ll also have the armour break reduction applying, increasing your damage even more. Anything will be dead
However, the main problem with the sig ability is it requires 100 hits. And by the time you reach 100 hits, there are going to be quite a few other champs that have already finished the fight. So in my mind, if you can’t get them down using the ‘unawakened’ cycle, she probably isn’t worth using unless the health points are absolutely stupid. In most fights, other champs are going to be quicker. If she can get them down in that cycle, she’s about 50% faster in my testing than most ‘good’ damage champ. 100 hits is how long it takes my Guardian to kill WS for comparison, and she does it in around 50. With suicides, my R2 6*’s SP3 hits for around 340k, plus the damage you already deal getting there. The SP1 usually finishes WS off.
Suicide Masteries:
Talking of suicides, how well does she run them? Short answer, it’s a Longshot situation. She gains a huge benefit from the attack increase, but takes all the bleed and poison damage. The only somewhat saving grace is that she should be killing them in one Special attack, which is mainly the SP3, so recoil shouldn’t be an issue. She is already squishy at the base, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, so the health loss from suicides can really hurt.
Synergies:
I’m just going to go through her main synergies since she does have quite a few.
With Thor Rags, she gains a combo shield when she has less than 50 hits in her combo meter. Good for safety when building up to your sig, or if you really need the heal block or safeguard
Corvus cuts her sig ability activation to 75 hits, which is really nice, and makes her ‘awakened’ rotation potentially more viable than other champs.
Nebula gives her 15% attack while True Accuracy is active. So that’s a 15% permanent attack boost above 100 hits when awakened, and 15% attack when you get a part of your mission done. She already has an excess of damage so it’s not super necessary, but why not if you need to run Nebula anyway
Aegon has two synergies with Proxima, both of which are rather nice. Firstly, she gets a 5-second combo shield once per fight when she would lose her combo. Good for safety, basically an alternative Thor Rags synergy. He also gives her +25% potency on furies, so for a max sig 5*, this is about 50-70% more attack at 100 hits. Really quite nice considering attack rating scales independently of special attack rating
Ebony Maw gives her a massive 50% crit boost for 20 seconds at the start of the fight, but it takes longer than 20 seconds for Proxima to really get into her damage, so it’s not helping you that much at all.
Final Verdict:
Hopefully, this guide has helped some of you. Proxima is a somewhat complex champion and takes quite a lot of skill to master. She has some interesting abilities and one of the highest damage potentials in the game. But she is also a champion with significant flaws.
Her damage is massive, but it takes time to unlock. Her utility is unique, but she cannot sustain it. Her heal block and evade counter can be amazing, but again, they take too long to achieve.
But the deathnail for this champ is damage caps. Any fight where she could be a top option: Abyss, Labyrinth, the Grandmaster, there is a damage cap, rendering her almost completely neutered behind so many other options. I understand why they need to cap it, or she would obliterate everything. But it makes me wonder why the champ was built as she is in the first place. I would happily take a significantly lower ceiling for faster ramp up and more utility.
Overall, should you rank her up? Like most things, it depends. If you have no other heal block or evade options, then she’s probably a decent investment. But if you don’t have any other options, chances are you’re not that progressed, so you might struggle with intercepting or holding a combo
If you’re an advanced account, maybe even an endgame account, she’s probably worth the rank below your max power ceiling. If you are focussing on R3’s, take her to R2. Focussing on R5’s. R4 would suffice. Her ability accuracy reduction is unique enough, and somewhat useful enough to want to have available if you need it, but isn’t going to be an everyday thing, so your resources are better invested elsewhere
So, is she Corvus’ sidepiece? For most advanced players, honestly yes. I hate Corvus, but he’s the more useful of the two, and she has a really good synergy for him. But don’t overlook Proxima. She can do some great stuff.
Anyway folks, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hopefully, this has been handy to someone. To be honest, I think I’ve almost convinced myself to R3 her over the course of researching and writing this. The extra health on the R3 might be super helpful.
‘Til next time.
P.S I'm going to try something new. A buff concept in the comments because I hit the word limit. Again.
Now, Proxima was hyped to all hell when she first released. People saw 1,000,000 SP2’s and went bananas. As they usually do for big yellow numbers. Admittedly, so did I. I remember sitting in a cramped hut on holiday in the North of Scotland when the first CCP videos released and scrambling to mop up all the content I could concerning her.
But, over time, the hype for her almost completely died. She was impractical, squishy, and lacked meaningful utility. She was relegated to Corvus’ sidepiece, as his popularity grew, and grew, and grew.
And yet, as her hype waned, I began to like her even more. She was a high skill/high reward champ, that had some interesting utility, and great animations.
I was lucky enough to pull the 5* the week she was added to the basic, after completing Act 5 for the first time. Later, I would get stupidly lucky and pull the 6* from a basic cav crystal, only a few weeks after they initially released. Now that 6* is R2, with a view to a possible R3 in the future, if I ever dupe her.
Base Stats:
Let’s begin by covering her base stats. She’s a very mixed bag in this department. Her attack and crit rate are decently above average, while her crit damage isn’t too shabby either. While she doesn’t have flashy basic attacks normally, she actually hits surprisingly hard at her base.
However, her Health and Block Proficiency are way below average, hence her reputation as squishy. For perspective, Cull’s block proficiency is only 3% higher. She’s not quite as bad as he is, but it’s noticeable. This is the first major flaw of the champ as her playstyle and utility is built around blocking, leading her to lose a decent chunk of health to chip damage.
Missions From Thanos:
Like the rest of the Black Order, her kit is centred around ‘Missions From Thanos’. She has 3 total missions, which she gets in a random order, and you have to complete them one at a time.
Confusingly, her missions are numbered, despite usually not appearing in order. They also don’t repeat. Once a mission is complete, it’s not going to appear in the fight again.
So, her ‘first mission’ requires her to parry the opponent 6 times. This is definitely the easiest one to achieve and will occur in the normal course of gameplay. However, there are a couple of tricks that can help you complete this mission easier.
Firstly, reparries wherever possible. There are guides on Youtube that can explain this better than I possibly could, but it’s basically just holding and letting go of block in perfect timing in order to activate parry on every hit of a combo or special. It’s useful for mitigating block damage in stun immune matchups, when you need openings but don’t want them to throw a special, or reducing damage taken from specials you can’t avoid. But with Proxima, it’s also going to count towards this mission
Secondly, parrying immediately after a parry stun ends. This takes a bit of practice, but it’s helpful for getting this mission out of the way without dealing with the opponent’s specials. It won’t always work since it’s AI dependent, but most of the time they’ll try and attack you as soon as the stun from parry wears off. It’s up to you to achieve that timing and repeat the process until the mission is complete
Thirdly, and this is kind of part of reparrying, but parrying specials instead of dexing them. Obviously, only do this when the block damage isn’t going to hurt too much, but it’s another way to complete the mission.
This mission really epitomises why Proxima’s kit doesn’t really work. This mission requires you to block, excessively, but her block proficiency is super low. If anything, it should be a very high block proficiency if this is to come together well. During the course of this mission, you might end up taking 5-10% of your health, and that adds up over a quest.
Her ‘second mission’ requires you to intercept 4 times. Annoyingly, it only counts dash intercepts. This is the kind of intercept where they are dashing at you and you interrupt that attack. So special intercepts, sidestepping, banking, none of that works here. Which makes it much riskier, and more difficult. I do have a few pointers for this mission as well.
Light intercepts do count. They’re a bit more difficult to time, and require practice, but they’re a lot less risky if you can get them down. It means you won't get countered if they decide to not dash at you. Backdraft intercepts are also your friend here.
Secondly, I quite like the rhythm of backing into my corner, banking, using two light attacks, dashing back, then light intercepting and doing one additional light hit. Enemies seem to get more aggressive because you’re close to the wall, so use it to your advantage and keep them close. This again takes practice, but it’s super satisfying to pull off.
Which leads me to my final tip for this mission. The difficulty of this mission depends on the AI. In ROL, this mission is hell since they are programmed with a passive AI. In act 6/7, you’re probably going to have a better time completing this mission. I would say this makes her an unfriendly champ for new players and the content they’re up against due to the AI profile, but the very nature of this mission makes her somewhat unfriendly to new players anyway.
Her ‘third’ and final mission requires Proxima to knock down the opponent 5 times with a heavy or special attack. I would recommend not using a Special attack to complete this mission if you can help it. We’ll get into why later, but for now, just know that dumping Proxima’s power generally isn’t advisable
For most fights, this mission is simply parry-heavy, like a million other champs at this point (Also plays into the whole block proficiency issue). Get into the habit of countering the opponents heavy and special attacks where possible, like buffed Crossbones, in order to mitigate block damage, and get this mission done quicker
“But Rocky!”, I don’t hear anyone asking, “Why do I want to complete her annoying missions!? Why can’t I just hit things!?”
Well, random person on the internet who did not ask (and I hope you’re having a nice day), completing her missions does 3 things.
1. Every time you complete an action associated with a mission, so that is a parry, an intercept, or a knockdown, you get a true accuracy passive for 5 seconds. This passive allows you to bypass evade and autoblock, two very annoying defensive mechanics. Now, Proxima is definitely not the best evade/autoblock counter. But I do love how accessible this is, for the most part, and if you have no other options, this can get you through
2.a) She gains a massive freaking prowess buff. First, she gains a prowess buff for 10 seconds. This gives you +250% special attack damage for each mission completed in the fight. So after one mission, it’s 250%, second: 500%, third: 750%. Really, really big prowess. It’s more a mutant class type ability but let’s not get bogged down in that.
b) When this 10 second prowess expires, she gains a permanent prowess buff, granting 200% special attack damage. So still massive. After 3 completed missions, you’ll permanently have +600% special attack damage.
3. After the 10 second prowess expires, that is when your next random mission appears. So essentially, there is a 10 second window between completing a mission and getting a new one, a window where your special attack damage gets actually stupid. Makes CGR look like Ebony Maw. I should mention that if this buff is removed before it expires, whether that be a node or nullify, she’ll immediately get her next set of missions.
And that’s it for Proxima’s missions. Next, let’s discuss her other 2 base mechanics, before moving onto the special attacks.
Safeguard:
Proxima has a really interesting ability to gain a safeguard buff. It activates when you have at least 30 hits in your combo meter, and you’re attacked by a projectile. When it activates, it prevents her from losing more than 3% of her max health from a single source for 4 seconds.
Now, theoretically, it caps the damage you can take from any hit at 3% for its duration, even SP3’s. In practicality, however, it doesn’t last long enough and she’s rarely getting attacked by projectiles.
But, if you’re worried about the block damage from a special attack, or a champion with projectiles in their combo, use Ghost or power control Proxima
On Block:
However, Proxima’s most unique, and arguably most useful ability, is tied to her block. Proxima can parry non-contact attacks, like Iron Man (Infinity War) or Havok. Additionally, opponents also suffer -200% offensive ability accuracy when hitting into her block. One of the most notable uses of this ability is bypassing Masochism, but it also does a lot of niche stuff, like stopping Apocalypse stunning you through block. (Sidenote: This in combination with the safeguard, makes her a surprisingly good Apoc counter. Munash has a full solo of Map 7 Apoc on his channel)
I could list a lot of things here, but it’s probably best to link you BeroMan’s video on it as he does a great job finding most of the interactions. I’m sure there are a few no one has discovered yet, but it’s the most comprehensive list I’ve seen:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5JayxbWIL8But of course, she’s super squishy through block. So once again, we have her main utility based on a style of gameplay that loses you to lose a bunch of health. It just doesn’t work.
And that’s it for Proxima’s base abilities, let’s get into her special attacks.
Special Attacks:
Her Special 1 gains +170% attack if the opponent is under the effects of a regeneration buff or passive. Because what Proxima really needs is more damage.
It also inflicts a heal block for 7 seconds. This isn’t a super practical healing counter as its uptime isn’t high enough, and there are also better options. But, if your combo is over 50 hits, its duration is doubled to 14 seconds, which means you can usually get close to 100% uptime from that point onwards
Of course, the problem is you need to get to 50 hits, and at that point, a lot of champs are doing it much better. It’s also susceptible to shrug off, duration reducing, etc. Still, it’s a nice bit of utility to have access to if you need it, although to be honest, she could probably out-damage the healing better than she could block it.
The Special 2 stuns for 2 seconds. That’s it. If you’re desperate to complete the knockdown mission you can land a heavy within the stun, although I would wonder why you’re not just parry-heavying at that point. It’s a long enough stun to get a double medium in before starting your next combo, so there is that. This is basically you’re big damage special, and it’s capable of putting up some stupid numbers if it crits
However, I opt for the SP3 when going for damage. It’s guaranteed and fits into my preferred rotation nicer. It has a 100% chance to stun for 6 seconds at base, a very long stun, only beaten by Aegon in normal fights. It’s enough for 2 5 hit combos, a double medium, and start your next combo with a light attack. That should land you at an SP1 if they are somehow still alive
It also applies a pretty decent armour break for 7 seconds, removing one armour up and reducing armour by 2100 on a 5/65 5*.
We’ve now got to talk about her Signature ability, which I’m in two minds about.
Signature Ability:
First of all, it adds a 4th mission. That mission is to reach 100 hits on the combo meter.
So you get the usual prowess stuff that we discussed earlier in her kit, but the true accuracy becomes permanent, and she gains a pretty massive fury buff for each mission already completed.
The main issue with this ability is that you need to reach 100 hits. The permanent true accuracy would be incredible. If it wasn’t behind 100 hits. Chances are you’re not going to be able to space your missions out across the 100 hits to keep the true accuracy active until then, so it just kind of...falls apart.
Now, the damage that results from this mission is mental, especially in her optimum rotation. But you get a 1000% prowess buff upon reaching 100 hits, and the furies add up to over 200% of base attack at max sig. So really, if you reach this point, throwing a special while this prowess is active should kill anything.
Rotation:
Proxima basically has 3 rotations.
1. If you need heal block, spam SP1, completing missions as you go.
2. If your Proxima is unawakened (like mine), hold onto your power and line up an SP3 with completing your third mission. This will give you a guaranteed 1150% damage SP3, without the crit RNG of the SP2, and the amount of hits it typically takes to complete those missions tends to line up better with being at 3 bars of power rather than having to play around to stay at 2
3. When your Proxima is duped, the rotation changes. Ideally, you want to complete your first 2 missions as soon as possible, while racking up as many hits as possible. Your Sig ability mission can be completed at the same time as your other missions, so you want to complete your third mission just before reaching 100 hits. What this does is overlap the 2 massive prowess buffs. You have the 750% prowess from completing your third mission, the 2 200% prowess buffs from your first 2 missions, the max amount of furies, and a 1000% prowess buff from the sig ability. All for a grand total of around 200% extra base attack, and 2150% prowess. If you use the SP3, as I would advise you to, you’ll also have the armour break reduction applying, increasing your damage even more. Anything will be dead
However, the main problem with the sig ability is it requires 100 hits. And by the time you reach 100 hits, there are going to be quite a few other champs that have already finished the fight. So in my mind, if you can’t get them down using the ‘unawakened’ cycle, she probably isn’t worth using unless the health points are absolutely stupid. In most fights, other champs are going to be quicker. If she can get them down in that cycle, she’s about 50% faster in my testing than most ‘good’ damage champ. 100 hits is how long it takes my Guardian to kill WS for comparison, and she does it in around 50. With suicides, my R2 6*’s SP3 hits for around 340k, plus the damage you already deal getting there. The SP1 usually finishes WS off.
Suicide Masteries:
Talking of suicides, how well does she run them? Short answer, it’s a Longshot situation. She gains a huge benefit from the attack increase, but takes all the bleed and poison damage. The only somewhat saving grace is that she should be killing them in one Special attack, which is mainly the SP3, so recoil shouldn’t be an issue. She is already squishy at the base, as I’ve mentioned numerous times, so the health loss from suicides can really hurt.
Synergies:
I’m just going to go through her main synergies since she does have quite a few.
With Thor Rags, she gains a combo shield when she has less than 50 hits in her combo meter. Good for safety when building up to your sig, or if you really need the heal block or safeguard
Corvus cuts her sig ability activation to 75 hits, which is really nice, and makes her ‘awakened’ rotation potentially more viable than other champs.
Nebula gives her 15% attack while True Accuracy is active. So that’s a 15% permanent attack boost above 100 hits when awakened, and 15% attack when you get a part of your mission done. She already has an excess of damage so it’s not super necessary, but why not if you need to run Nebula anyway
Aegon has two synergies with Proxima, both of which are rather nice. Firstly, she gets a 5-second combo shield once per fight when she would lose her combo. Good for safety, basically an alternative Thor Rags synergy. He also gives her +25% potency on furies, so for a max sig 5*, this is about 50-70% more attack at 100 hits. Really quite nice considering attack rating scales independently of special attack rating
Ebony Maw gives her a massive 50% crit boost for 20 seconds at the start of the fight, but it takes longer than 20 seconds for Proxima to really get into her damage, so it’s not helping you that much at all.
Final Verdict:
Hopefully, this guide has helped some of you. Proxima is a somewhat complex champion and takes quite a lot of skill to master. She has some interesting abilities and one of the highest damage potentials in the game. But she is also a champion with significant flaws.
Her damage is massive, but it takes time to unlock. Her utility is unique, but she cannot sustain it. Her heal block and evade counter can be amazing, but again, they take too long to achieve.
But the deathnail for this champ is damage caps. Any fight where she could be a top option: Abyss, Labyrinth, the Grandmaster, there is a damage cap, rendering her almost completely neutered behind so many other options. I understand why they need to cap it, or she would obliterate everything. But it makes me wonder why the champ was built as she is in the first place. I would happily take a significantly lower ceiling for faster ramp up and more utility.
Overall, should you rank her up? Like most things, it depends. If you have no other heal block or evade options, then she’s probably a decent investment. But if you don’t have any other options, chances are you’re not that progressed, so you might struggle with intercepting or holding a combo
If you’re an advanced account, maybe even an endgame account, she’s probably worth the rank below your max power ceiling. If you are focussing on R3’s, take her to R2. Focussing on R5’s. R4 would suffice. Her ability accuracy reduction is unique enough, and somewhat useful enough to want to have available if you need it, but isn’t going to be an everyday thing, so your resources are better invested elsewhere
So, is she Corvus’ sidepiece? For most advanced players, honestly yes. I hate Corvus, but he’s the more useful of the two, and she has a really good synergy for him. But don’t overlook Proxima. She can do some great stuff.
Anyway folks, I’ve rambled on long enough. Hopefully, this has been handy to someone. To be honest, I think I’ve almost convinced myself to R3 her over the course of researching and writing this. The extra health on the R3 might be super helpful.
‘Til next time.
P.S I'm going to try something new. A buff concept in the comments because I hit the word limit. Again.
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Comments
Buff Concept:
I’ve seen a lot of people suggest over the years that completing her missions should persist. To be honest, I think this would be a bit broken. I think instead, her first 3 missions should all be active at the start of the fight, like Ebony Maw’s. This would allow her to ramp in the fight quicker, as well as make her feel less stunting to play. They would be completed over the course of semi-normal gameplay.
Secondly, an adjustment to the sig ability. Make the completion of each mission grant a fury, instead of all at once they trigger over the course of the fight. This would stop there being such a dead space between missions 2 & 3, as well as make the sig ability useful outside of 100 hit fights. I would suggest changing it to 75 hits, 50 with Corvus, but I’m unsure how balanced that would be.
Let’s make the base duration of the heal block 14 seconds. After 30 hits it becomes passive. She’s still not going to be a great heal counter, but this will allow her to tackle a fair bit more, and provide a lot more value for those without Warlock, Mysterio or Psycho-Man
This is a small one, but increasing the duration of the true accuracy gained upon the completion of a mission to 10 seconds would allow it to cover the whole prowess duration, rather than having 5 seconds of dead time.
Can we add more armour breaks? They’re a hallmark of the cosmic class, but she only has 1 off the SP3? Even a non-stacking 10 second one off the heavy attack would suffice
And finally, if there is one change above all else that would improve the champ, increase the damn block proficiency. Her entire kit hinges on blocking, and her proficiency is a measly 59%. Take it to at least 65%, although the closer to 70% the better.
An increase in block proficiency wouldn’t be bad either, but I know some people probably fix that by using Guardian to give her some additional block proficiency. I’ve never tried that, as I only pulled Guardian today as a 6*, and before that all I had was the 3*, and I believe the strength of the synergy is based on block proficiency. I don’t really know how feasible that option is though, so I personally think that she should get a bit of a boost to her block proficiency, especially since parts of her kit actually rely on blocking.
Overall, really well done job on the buff concept, as well as the character guide! I’ve always enjoyed playing Proxima, as once you get her ramped the damage starts to get nutty. I hope that should she get buffed, they take note of at least some of the ideas you have listed here, as I truly think they would make her a much better character.
Another use for her is all the do you bleed, 95% or 90% reduced damage nodes. Just ramp her up and ignore the damage reduction, but then there's Guilly who doesn't need that much skill.
She’s dope. Honestly I’d take a 6* to R3. She doesn’t need all 3 missions to be a banger. She’s amazing in 7.1 too especially Yondu