Hear Me Out, Kitty Pryde is Already a Top 5 Mutant Champ
So, yes, the title is a bit clickbaity. Not saying that I don't think that she's a top 5 mutant or never will be, but I certainly think that you can't decide something like that when she hasn't even been released yet. Nonetheless, I think that she is an amazing champ who will have a ton of damage and utility. Let's take a look at her abilities:
Incinerate Immunity:
This one's pretty self-explanatory. I mean incinerate immunity is a great ability to have against champs like Mephisto, and it's a nice thing to have on nodes that can put incinerate debuffs on you. But she doesn't just have a simple immunity to it. When she is immune to an incinerate effect, she gains 30% prowess potency which caps out at 400%. And yes, this does stack, but has a 0.8 second cooldown. Not sure exactly how fast her prowess potency falls off and if it scales based on anything. We'll circle back to this when I go more into her prowess effects. But think about how insane this would be against champs like Mephisto and nodes like Energy Adaption: Fire and Freezer Burn.
Prowess:
I mean she's a mutant, what did you expect? This one seems pretty simple but it can get complicated. Each prowess that she has increases her special attack damage by 5%, and it usually is capped at 20 prowess. She gets one prowess when either champion lands a critical hit or inflicts a stun effect. She gains 2 when it's a guaranteed crit or a passive stun. It'll be interesting to see if it triggers on block, because that would make her better against champs like Corvus who can crit through block.Also, she gets 2 prowess when she intercepts a dashing opponent. I'll talk more about her intercepting when I bring up her phasing ability.
Phasing:
Woohoo! Another phasing champ. But this one is a bit different from the main culprit of phasing, Ghost. Instead of activating phase on dash back, she activates phase on dashing forward. To phase, you need 3 or more prowess. So just start out the fight with a parry and a 5 hit combo, and chances are that you'll get 3 prowess from that. When phasing is triggered, it lasts for 1.2 seconds, giving the opponent a 100% chance to miss, and is paused during her special attacks. While phased, she gets an increased crit rating, becomes stun immune, and takes 80% reduce damage. 80% reduced damage, doesn't that seem like it could be a bit overpowered? Yes, yes it does. I mean Ghost with a synergy can take no damage while phasing. Kitty in just her base kit, unawakened, gets 80% reduced damage. Looking forward to using this one. While phasing, Robots gain 20% ability accuracy reduction, but I don't anticipate that this will be used too much. While phased, personal debuffs and buffs that are triggered become passive and gain +20% duration. This will be very useful as I will talk about later. Each miss caused during phase deals some burst damage, and she gets +3 personal prowess for each hit that misses. The important thing about that +3 prowess is that it can go over the limit of 20. The thing about this is that at the end of the miss, 6 Prowess are consumed for each miss that is caused during phasing. The loophole around this is that if you phase a special attack, then go right into using a special. You keep your prowess because the phasing won't expire, thus not letting the prowess be removed.
Special Attacks:
SP1: One Physical attack followed by 3 non-contact hits. Each of the final 3 hits inflict an incinerate debuff, dealing a good amount of damage, over 3.5 seconds. The special thing about this attack is that they expire 1 at a time. If you have 10 or more prowess, the incinerates will trigger through block. This one doesn't seem like much, but it'll be very useful in her ramp-up, as I'll talk about in a bit.
SP2: Five Physical Hits. Each hit deals a burst of physical damage equal to 40% of the damage dealt by the hit. With 10% prowess, gain an unblockable buff lasting 0 seconds, plus an additional 0.25 seconds for each Prowess above 10. Again, doesn't seem like it's much to look at, but it'll be her main damage dealer. I mean imagine if you can get 20 prowess, which each increase special attack damage by 5%, and then throw on 400% potency, they deal 400% special attack damage, plus 40% physical damage for each hit.
SP3: Four Physical Hits. Inflict a non-stacking Incinerate Debuff dealing some Energy Damage over 30 seconds. When this attack ends, enter Phasing for 2 seconds, if Phasing was already active this time extends to 4 seconds. This will again help with her ramp up. This debuff will tick for 30 seconds. So, if you can gain prowess potency consistently for 30 seconds, then this will easily get you to the 400% potency cap.
Sig Ability:
This is just the cherry on top to her abilities. At Sig 1, you take no damage while phasing from any source. That means no SP3 damage, no DOT damage, no limbo damage, none of that. Personally, I think getting someone awakened is a lot easier than having a synergy, so this gives her a leg up on Ghost. Also, at max sig, while phased, she gains 250% defensive combat power rate and she pauses phasing while being stuck. Not sure how that'll scale with sig ability. The first time each personal incinerate effect expires naturally or is purified, it has a 40% chance at max sig to retrigger itself at 30% potency, and it becomes passive. Again, we'll have to wait and see how this scales with sig. I mean if you throw a Sp3, and the incinerate expires after the 30 seconds, and then retriggers, then you get another 30 seconds of incinerate.
Uses:
I mean I talked a lot about a lot of different things. From what I can tell in the less than an hour that I've seen her abilities, it looks like she'll be amazing. I think the playstyle to go to will be SP3, get the long incinerate. Then build up to 20 prowess and 400% potency, then launch a SP2 while phased for extra crit rating. Also, the phasing is always a great ability. In addition to being able to miss attacks, it also acts as an intercept safety net. If you somehow get intercepted by the opponent, then they'll miss, giving you time to react.
Synergies:
With Wolverine: When phase expires after causing miss, there is a 30% chance to consume no prowess. This will be a nice added bonus, but in no way will be too useful for her or necessary for her.
With Ghost: Each miss that occurs during phase grants +2 additional prowess, these can stack above the normal limit. So when you miss an attack, you obviously already get +3 prowess, but now you'll get an additional +2. Pretty good and will help her, but again not too useful or necessary.
With Emma Frost: Become immune to reverse controls, and each time this immunity is triggered gain +1 personal prowess, cooldown 0.8 seconds. I mean the immunity is nice, but i mean how much is 1 prowess going to really help you? Good utility, but not too useful for her damage.
With Tigra: While 10% prowess are active, become passively unnblockable while phased. Again, another intercepting safety net. If you're thinking about using this to get a special off while phasing, you'll already get an unblockable buff while above 10 prowess from the SP1.
WIth Magneto: When phasing gain 1 fury buff for each debuff on her, increasing attack rating by 7% for 5 seconds, max 5. If there wasn't a maximum here, I'd say yeah this is amazing, but the maximum is 5. 35% attack rating is still good, but not game-breaking by any means.
With Dragon Man and ???: Increase the duration of incinerate debuffs by +10% and passive incinerates by +15%. This will help her ramp-up, but not too useful.
TLDR:
Basically, put incinerate on the opponent, gain increased prowess potency. Stuns and critical hits build up prowess. Big special attacks, big red and yellow numbers. Phasing will allow her to miss attack, tank sp3s, and many other things.
Conclusion:
Yes, I might be a bit fast to jump to conclusions on her, but she just looks like an amazing champ. Looking forward to her joining the contest.
