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A Comprehensive Review of Purgatory

Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
edited August 2021 in Strategy and Tips
Purgatory received overall negative responses. Sadly, some things are based on wrongful information which is spread by certain CCP'ers. This post is to give an in-depth analysis of Purgatory's abilities, one possible way to play her and some suggestions to Kabam to fix her.

Standard disclaimer: I'm not all-knowing. This is just my analysis of this new champion. You're welcome to share your thoughts, tips & tricks.

Basic stats

A R5 5* (no masteries) has:
Health: 33,227 (Comparison: AA has 31,170)
Attack Rating: 2,843 (Comparison: AA has 2,301)
Critical Hit Rating: 400 (Comparison: AA has 628)
Critical Damage Rating: 525 (Comparison: AA has 738)
Armor Rating: 342 (Comparison: AA has 525)
Block Proficiency: 3,150 (Comparison: AA has 3,734)

On top, Purgatory has 1400 Energy Resistance (Comparison: Sorcerer Supreme has 2100 Energy Resistance).

Purgatory has immunity to Incinerate, and all attacks deal Energy damage instead of Physical.

General mechanics

Purgatory has only 60% of the combat power rate of regular champions. Instead, she gains a passive Power Gain of up to 9% of a Bar of Power based on Bloodthirst, over 1.50 second(s), each time she can gain Bloodthirst. When she is Demonic Rampage, she doesn't gain Bloodthirst, but she still activates the Ability Power Gain. It's Ability Power Gain, so Petrify, Exhaustion and Wither debuffs negatively affect it.

She has three sources to gain Bloodthirst:
    Well-timed blocks, gaining 5 Bloodthirst per block;
  1. Basic hits, gaining 5 Bloodthirst per hit;
SP1, gaining 25 Bloodthirst.

Ergo, a standard parry and 5-hit combo can gain up to 54% of a Bar of Power and 30 Bloodthirst. There is always a lag of 1.5 seconds when you gain Ability Power, so keep that in mind.

Bloodthirst falls off over time, falling off faster the longer it’s been since it last increased. Bloodthirst falls off slower for each Buff on the Opponent, during any Special Attack, and when fighting as a Defender.

When she reaches 100 Bloodthirst, she enters Demonic Rampage, locking Bloodthirst at Max for 15 seconds, after which it resets to 0. During Demonic Rampage, she increases her Attack Rating by +2274.4 Attack Rating (R5 5* no masteries).
There are two ways to pause Demonic Rampage:
  1. During Purgatory's Special Attacks;
  2. When she fills a Bar of Power, for 3 seconds.
While in Demonic Rampage, striking with the second Medium Attack causes Purgatory to consume 50% of a Bar of her own Power, and then Incinerate the Opponent for 1563.65 Energy Damage (R5 5* no masteries) over 4 seconds. Incinerate removes Perfect Block Chance and reduces Block Proficiency by 50% while it’s active. It is unclear if this damage is including or excluding the damage boost from Demonic Rampage. With the Symbiote Supreme or Venom The Duck synergy, Incinerate debuff potency is increased by 115%.

While at first glance this is a negative, it helps maintaining her Demonic Rampage, as each time she crosses the threshold of a Bar of Power, she pauses Demonic Rampage for 3 seconds. Demonic Rampage is the biggest source of her power. Her Ability Power Gain alone makes that the loss of power can be compensated which just one 5-hit combo.

While in Demonic Rampage, activating a Special Attack gives her a Fury Buff increasing Attack Rating by +2274.4 during that Special Attack.

Cross-Fight Soul Capture

When filling a Bar of Power, she gains 1 Soul Shard (2 when fighting as a Defender). With the Morningstar synergy, she gains 1 Soul Shard every 25 seconds. At 9 Shards, she captures the Opponent’s Soul, inflicting an indefinite Passive Neutralize that reduces Buff Ability Accuracy by 65%.

You do not need to fill 9 Bars of Power (as certain CCP'ers wrongfully claimed), it is sufficient to cross the threshold. While playing with her own power consumption, she can go back-and-forward between thresholds, thus gaining shards rapidly. So if played correctly, you only need 4.5 bars of power, which is manageable.

For shorter fights, you need her signature ability. Winning the fight during Demonic Rampage or with a Special Attack instantly captures the Opponent’s Soul. I would say she needs her signature ability to be practical.

Winning the fight after capturing their soul also permanently activates their Class Soul Ability for the next 2 fights against all Classes. Class Soul Abilities do not stack.

Below are the different Souls:
  • Mystic Soul: When the Opponent activates a Special Attack, Passively Regenerate 60% of damage taken from Blocked Hits for 6 seconds.
  • Cosmic Soul: When filling a Bar of Power, Nullify 1 Buff off the Opponent. If a Buff was Nullified, gain an Unblockable Buff for 2 seconds.
  • Tech Soul: When filling a Bar of Power, inflict an Armor Break Debuff for 6 seconds reducing Armor Rating by -1400 (R5 5*). This Armor Break debuff does not stack but refreshes.
  • Mutant Soul: When the Opponent activates a Special Attack, Power Steal 66% of their remaining Power, gaining 100% of the Power stolen.
  • Skill Soul: When a Damage over Time Debuff on the Opponent Expires, is Purified, or fails to apply due to an Immunity, inflict a Slow Passive for 9 seconds. Slow reduces Unstoppable and Evade Ability Accuracy by 100%, and prevents the effects of Unstoppable. Slow won't trigger against natural Class Advantage. The Slow Passive does not stack but refreshes.
  • Science Soul: No soul capture.
What does this mean?
  • Mystic Soul: opponents with difficult to dex specials (like Apocalypse, War Machine SP1, Punisher SP2) deal a ton of block damage, but with this soul you can recover 60% of damage dealt. This is relatively niche, as most specials can be dexed for 100% damage avoidance. But still, it is a nice safety net.
  • Cosmic Soul: As long the soul isn't captured, she can't deal with buffs very well, while you do want to remove buffs instantly (think Annihilus Cosmic Rod buff, Venom Genetic Mutation buffs, Hyperion Power Gain buff, Medusa Fury buffs etc.). This soul makes that every time she passes the power threshold, she can nullify a buff and gain an Unblockable buff for 2 seconds. This will also trigger Mystic Dispersion, so she can gain more power. However, once the Passive Neutralize is active, the chance of proccing a buff is severely decreased, and so does the advantage of this Soul (or Mystic Dispersion).
  • Tech Soul: The Armor Break debuff is medium-potent and can boost her damage by quite a bit. In match-ups where there are Armor Passives (like Killmongers Vibranium Armor or IMIW Molecular Armor), she can still remove those Armor Passives.
  • Mutant Soul: With this soul, you can quickly gain power, if you play smart. If an opponent is nearly at 2 Bars of Power (but not yet), you should bait a SP1. When the opponent does that, the remaining power (roughly a little less than 1 Bar of Power) gets stolen for 66% (89,1% at max sig), gaining 100% of Power Stolen.
  • Skill Soul: When the Incinerate or Degeneration debuff (or any other DoT debuff, like those from suicides) expire, purified or prevented by an immunity, a Slow Passive is applied. However, as you either need Demonic Rampage or a SP2, this Slow is unreliable. Fighting Skill champions with Purgatory is a waste of Class Souls.
  • Science Soul: No soul capture, so a waste of Class Souls.
The signature ability increases the duration of the Mystic, Cosmic, and Skill Souls and the potency of the Tech and Mutant Souls between 1% to 35%. That's nice to have, but isn't necessary.

The synergy with Guillotine gives her a Mystic Soul at the start of the first fight that lasts the entire quest. This permanent Mystic Soul does not count towards the maximum.

So you can have a maximum of 3 Souls active during: a fight:
  • The Mystic Soul from the Guillotine synergy;
  • The Class Soul from the fight before;
  • The Class Soul from two fights before;
  • The Class Soul captured from your current opponent.
Three different strategies

First, you need to get to Demonic Rampage. As parries and basic hits give Bloodthirst, you can do the following:
  • do a standard parry and MLLLM 5-hit combo and gain up to 54% of a Bar of Power and 30 Bloodthirst;
  • do a standard parry and medium-heavy (heavy is three hits) and gain up to 45% of a Bar of Power and 25 Bloodthirst;
  • do a standard parry and MLM 3-hit combo and gain up to 36% of a bar of power and 20 Bloodthirst
  • MLLL intercepts gain up to 36% of a bar of power and 20 Bloodthirst.
Once you achieve Demonic Rampage, there are three ways to play her, centered around her three Special Attacks:
  1. Sustainability: chain SP1. Each hit Regenerates 10% of the damage dealt during Demonic Rampage;
  2. Maximum damage (low health opponents): chain SP2. The last hit inflicts a Degeneration Debuff, dealing 7676.1 Direct Damage over 6 seconds. During Demonic Rampage, this attack is Passively Unblockable;
  3. Maximum damage (high health opponents): chain SP3. Purgatory gains a non-stacking Power Gain Buff, granting 100% of Max Power over 35 seconds. If the Opponent’s Soul is captured, this attack deals 4% of their Max Health in Direct Damage.
The trick is to keep an eye on your power. The goal is to stay as long in Demonic Rampage. The only way to do that is to cross bars of power. At instinct, you throw a special once you cross the bar of power. But then you waste an opportunity of pausing Demonic Rampage. During the special attack, the Demonic Rampage is paused by default anyway. Also, you need to drain your power to apply the incinerate debuff and quickly gain souls.

You should be patient, launch your special at 1 bars above the threshold. Then do MLM and chain the SP2. You take advantage of the pause of Demonic Rampage, dealing maximum amount of damage, and then you start with 0.5 bars of power. At 1 bar of power, the Demonic Rampage is again paused.

For instant, if you want to chain SP2:
  • When in Demonic Rampage, go to 3 bars of power;
  • Do MLM. This will drain your power to 2.5 bars of power and inflict an incinerate debuff;
  • Chain the SP2;
  • You start with 0.5 bars of power, so go quickly to 1 bar of power to pause Demonic Rampage.
  • Gain power until 3 bars of power and repeat.
If you lose your Demonic Rampage, do not waste your power on a weak SP2. It's better to hold on to your power at 3 bars of power until you go back to Demonic Rampage, do MLM to drain 0.5 bars of power and then launch the SP2 again.

You can pick and choose. Chaining SP1's is quicker, applies more incinerate debuffs and heals you a small amount of health, while the SP2 is the more potent special attack and applies a more heavy degeneration debuff.

Is Purgatory good?

Purgatory is a decent champion, with in an interesting playstyle. The execution could have been better.

1) Her Base stats are low

Purgatory doesn't have the big yellow numbers, and that's all because her basic attributes are low. I've put Archangel in comparison, as he got pretty average stats. And even that is lower for Purgatory. This has effect on the whole performance of the champion.

Her block proficiency is low, too low. She takes way too much chip damage from parrying. Parrying that you need to get Bloodthirst. Absurd!

Also, while her Energy Resistance is nice, it isn't enough to bring Purgatory against Iceman or Magik, and isn't even on the level of Sorcerer Supreme.

I think giving her the base critical hit rating, critical damage rating, armor rating and block proficiency stats of AA and the Energy Resistance of Sorcerer Supreme will add a lot extra sauce to her.

2) Her Soul mechanic is inflexible

If you make a champion with a cross-fight ability in 2021, it is baffling you've no agency in it. Regardless if I want it or need it, I need to waste precious charges every fight. If for some reason I need an Armor Break champion, why do I need to bench Purgatory in order to save charges? It is so important to have flexible, customizable and ready-to-go champions.

Even more, you can argue you should be able to keep the Soul throughout the whole quest. Compare it with CAIW: you need to get specific champions of a class in your team to get the effect. That's the price you pay (although weak). The price of Purgatory is to fight that specific class of champions and win the soul. No Soul benefit is so OP that it should only lasts two fights. Just scrap it!

This game is highly demanding. There are a lot of nodes and abilities that require instant action: nullify, armor break, slow,... You simply don't have the time to beat a certain champion, acquire a soul and then use it for the real fight. With Guillotine, you can activate the Mystic Soul at the start of the quest. Why only that soul? Make it for every soul!

I must add: I am not a fan of this kind of mechanic. It sounds good: just bring her and another champion and you're good to go. But this game is highly competitive. There are probably a bunch of champion who would do the exact same thing, but with no extra champions needed. She can't win that.

Unless you get a free soul persistent charge at the beginning of the quest which you can freely spent for a Class Soul, with no synergies required. Or, you get one free soul persistent charge which you can spent, and regain it at the end of the fight. The next fight, you can spent it on the same Class Soul or choose a different one. If none is loaded, the Mystic Soul is automatically chosen. A bit like how Stealth Spidey works. The Guillotine synergy could increase the bleed duration by 20% or something.

3) DoT or burst champion?

Officially, she is tagged #Offensive: Damage Over Time, but besides the incinerate and degeneration debuff, she doesn't have that much. In fact, everything in her description screams #Offensive: Burst: the increased attack rating while Demonic Rampage is on and the extra Fury during special attacks. I can't blame CCP'ers to play her like that, but clearly this shouldn't be.

I get her playstyle, but sacrificing a half a bar of power for one incinerate that deals 1563.65 Energy Damage over 4 seconds? This is really not balanced. No wonder she feels like a wet noodle, she has no hot sauce!

A small change, but I would make her less bursty. Every Bloodthirst should increase attack rating by +22.744 Attack Rating (R5 5* no masteries), maxing out at +2274.4 Attack Rating at 100 Bloodthirst. Indeed, no change in the actual attack rating, but while building up Bloodthirst, you hit harder and harder, thus making her less of a noodle without Demonic Rampage.

Purgatory carries a big whip-sword, but she can't bleed? Ridiculous!

Medium attacks and the heavy attack hits should have a 45% chance to inflict a bleed debuff, dealing 3208.3 Direct Damage over 8 seconds. This increases to 100% when it is a critical hit. There is a chance equal to the Critical Hit Chance that the bleed becomes a critical bleed debuff, multiplying the potency with the Critical Damage Modifier.

When she is in Demonic Rampage, her whip-sword ignites, turning the bleed debuff into incinerate debuff with the same potency. There is a flat +60% chance to inflict the incinerate debuff. The incinerate debuff scales with the increased attack rating of the Demonic Rampage. When the hit is a Critical hit, that incinerate debuff becomes a critical incinerate debuff, multiplying the potency with the Critical Damage Modifier. Critical Incinerate debuffs remove perfect block chance and reduce block proficiency by 100% instead of 50%.

This should not only increase her damage, but really make her a DoT champion she is supposed to be. She could have an Archangel or Hyperion kind of style to spam parry-heavies to build-up DoT debuffs.

3) She is too aggressive

Purgatory requires an aggressive playstyle that is time-sensitive. She has no form of power control to aid her playstyle.

All debuffs should Passively Suppress the opponent, reducing Combat Power Rate by 15% per debuff. Combat Power Rate cannot be less than zero. That's why I doubled the duration, so it is easier to stack debuffs and thus reduce Combat Power Rate significantly.

The power that she consumes, should burn an equal amount of the opponent's power as well. This is a more immediate form of power control and makes the loss of power easier to swallow. And of course, it gives some extra damage.

4) Utility?

I agree that although she has utility, it is highly situational and not readily available. But some nice additions should do the trick.

Previously, the Skill Soul wasn't useful. There weren't enough DoT debuffs that could expire for it to be usable. With the extra DoT debuffs, it is easier to apply a Slow Passive.

The Mystic Soul isn't bad, but I would make it so that the Block Regeneration Passive duration is paused during Special Attacks, and stacks when a new one is launched in quick succession, lasting the same 6 seconds. It should compensate for the fact her block proficiency is low.

The Tech Soul Armor Break should stack. Period.

When she is in Demonic Rampage, all debuffs Passively Despairs the opponent on top of the Passive Suppression, reducing the potency of healing and Regeneration effects by 15% per debuff. If the Despair mastery is active, she reduces the potency of healing and Regeneration effects by an extra 10% flat per debuff. Both Guillotine and G2099 have a spectre debuff that reduces healing, it is only fitting Purgatory can do it as well.

If a bleed or incinerate debuff fails to apply due to an immunity, fails to apply by chance because of a reduction in ability accuracy or the debuffs are purified, she deals a burst of 3208.3 Energy Damage (modified by critical bleeds and incinerates) and gains +5 Bloodthirst instead.

For a mystic, she can't deal with buffs very well. There is only two ways she can deal with buffs: with the Cosmic Soul or through the permanent Neutralize passive when a soul is captured. That is quite a handicap. Remove the Neutralize passive. Instead, she imprisons the soul at the start of the fight. For every soul shard she captures, the Soul Imprisonment passive is fed. When a buff is triggered, there is a 7% chance per soul shard to consume the buff. Consumed buffs Passively deal 1563.65 Direct Damage instantly and she regenerates 20% of damage dealt. When the soul is captured, the Soul Imprisonment has a total of 70% chance to consume buffs. Consumption of buffs triggers Mystic Dispersion.

The Life Steal of the SP1 is too weak, double the regeneration to 20% at minimum.

Conclusion

I like Purgatory a lot. She is an interesting, MCOC-unique champion with very good graphics and moves. It's a shame she isn't good to play. With some changes, she can become a pretty decent champion that might be worthwhile to invest in.
Post edited by Kabam Porthos on

Comments

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    slackerslacker Posts: 772 ★★★★

    Her utility is her biggest drawback imo.

    I don't think she lack utility, it's just the way she get it and how long is the problem, 9 bars of power for the utility for 2 fights is not good.
    Also to op post, yeah, her base stat suck, even she has good based atk, also her degen from sp2 should be all beam hits not just the last one.
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    Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★

    DNA is that you

    OK, but seriously, great thorough writeup, I'd give you ten insightfuls if I could!

    That's a nice compliment 😊
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    StellarStellar Posts: 1,069 ★★★★
    Good Description of Purgatory !
    You gave some nice ideas to "fix" her.

    I just get her as a 6 stars and used her, as 6R1 unduped, in the uncollected EQ. never was able to capture one soul with her unduped !
    even though i could consume my power in demonic rampage to maximize the shards, i was only able to get 5-6 shards before ending the fight. She needs to fight big opponents just to get the 9 shards during the fight and she can only keep the captured souls for 2 fights :neutral:
    As for now, the only immediate good thing i can see is she will make my Mephisto 6R3 bleed immune with her synergy.

    Maybe Kabam could change one or two things about her, like the way she can capture souls and how many times/fights she can keep them ti fuel her powers ?
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    Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
    (Sadly no edit button. Fix it Kabam!)

    There is a third way to fight with Purgatory.

    Instead of building to a special, just do Parry MLLLM combo. That should push yourself over a bar of power, pausing Demonic Rampage, and apply an incinerate consistently. Throwing no specials extends Demonic Rampage considerably and applies plenty of debuffs. Only when it's about to expire you throw an SP2 for maximum damage.
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    JuggerNotJuggerNot Posts: 432 ★★
    That was a lot of words...
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    Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
    Stellar said:

    Good Description of Purgatory !
    You gave some nice ideas to "fix" her.

    I just get her as a 6 stars and used her, as 6R1 unduped, in the uncollected EQ. never was able to capture one soul with her unduped !
    even though i could consume my power in demonic rampage to maximize the shards, i was only able to get 5-6 shards before ending the fight. She needs to fight big opponents just to get the 9 shards during the fight and she can only keep the captured souls for 2 fights :neutral:
    As for now, the only immediate good thing i can see is she will make my Mephisto 6R3 bleed immune with her synergy.

    Maybe Kabam could change one or two things about her, like the way she can capture souls and how many times/fights she can keep them ti fuel her powers ?

    @Stellar

    In shorter fights her sig is absolutely vital. Luckily, you only need sig 1 to gain full benefit. But it's a good question if this requirement isn't too much for a champion who is well-below average. It pretty much cripples everyone who pulls her as a 6* (or 5* at lower levels). Competition for awakening gems is high.

    I do think her soul mechanic isn't good at all. It's just hard to think of an alternative, because it fits in the character story.

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    StellarStellar Posts: 1,069 ★★★★
    edited August 2021

    Stellar said:

    Good Description of Purgatory !
    You gave some nice ideas to "fix" her.

    I just get her as a 6 stars and used her, as 6R1 unduped, in the uncollected EQ. never was able to capture one soul with her unduped !
    even though i could consume my power in demonic rampage to maximize the shards, i was only able to get 5-6 shards before ending the fight. She needs to fight big opponents just to get the 9 shards during the fight and she can only keep the captured souls for 2 fights :neutral:
    As for now, the only immediate good thing i can see is she will make my Mephisto 6R3 bleed immune with her synergy.

    Maybe Kabam could change one or two things about her, like the way she can capture souls and how many times/fights she can keep them ti fuel her powers ?

    @Stellar

    In shorter fights her sig is absolutely vital. Luckily, you only need sig 1 to gain full benefit. But it's a good question if this requirement isn't too much for a champion who is well-below average. It pretty much cripples everyone who pulls her as a 6* (or 5* at lower levels). Competition for awakening gems is high.

    I do think her soul mechanic isn't good at all. It's just hard to think of an alternative, because it fits in the character story.

    an alternative would be to make those souls captured benefits permanents for the rest of the quest (like the original Morningstar).
    The capture mechanism is not bad, it is just that you can't really use it in short fight and of course, if Purgatory is not duped you will end you fights without any soul captured ! it make her mechanic a bit useless till you can dupe her.

    Perhaps decrease the numbers of shards needed to capture the souls (in defense she gain 2 shards every time she move on the next power bar).

    I am also surprise that there is not some kind of synergy with a cosmic, skill, mutant, tech like the synergy with Guillotine ! Making Guillotine 2099 gives her a permanent Tech soul benefit would be nice ! CGR for the cosmic one (he come from hell after all), Gwenpool for the skill one ? Psylocke for the mutant one ?

    This way you could adapt your purgatory to your need. Maybe limiting Purgatory to 3 souls at a time ? so she will not be too powerful.
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