Buff Review - Spider-Man (Miles Morales)

Disclaimer: Champion Testing was done using a 6-Star Rank 1 Sig 20 Miles. He's a champion who relies on having high sig, so definitely not at full potential here.

Playstyle:
For shorter fights, try to get all 3 Challenges done before a SP2. Get in a Heavy during Camo for 2 Debuffs (Taunt and Rupture). And then SP2 to spam Shock damage.
For longer fights, again keep getting the challenges done. Get off Heavy, SP1 and SP3 during Camo for all 5 unique Debuffs (Taunt, Rupture, Weakness, Phy. Vulnerability, Power Sting). And then SP2 for Shock damage.

Synergy Team:
▪ Spider-Ham: Two-way synergy granting Fury when completing Challenges, and reducing number of Challenges needed to complete. Arguably the most important synergy here for Miles.
The rest are pretty meh synergies but I'll still give them a shout:
▪ Stark Spidey: +20% Debuff potency
▪ Peni Parker: +4% Attack and Debuff duration per Spider-Sense charge (max 12%)
▪ Mr Negative: +5% Attack per Spider-Sense charge (max 15%), and also triggers his Dark Energy synergy with Sparky
▪ Stealth Spidey: Left this one out from my team as I found it quite useless after the buff. Evade does not trigger while blocking (more block damage) and SP2 inflicts passive Power Sting which barely does any damage. If you need a Power Sting for nodes, just SP3.

Next is the pros and cons:
Pros:
▪ Above average damage potential. Once ramped and with all those Furies from sig the SP2 Shock can tick for a nice bunch. Base damage is also pretty good with a few Furies.
▪ Special damage mitigation with a non mutually exclusive 21% evade chance and a 35% miss chance. Also serves as a strong buffer in case you screw up and get comboed in the face.
▪ The ability to cause Unblockable attacks to Miss would be handy to have. Unfortunately bugged as of now and my Miles could not counter SoP Darkhawk's SP1. C'mon if you would just test fixes and new mechanics before releasing them, at least half the champion bugs wouldn't exist.
▪ One of the most accessible Taunt mechanics in the game by simply throwing a Heavy attack.

Cons:
▪ Reliance on sig. The majority of Miles' DPS is coming from his sig, with those Furies bumping up his base and Shock damage, so even if you pull a 6-Star he won't be useful from the get go. Rather unfortunate considering how many champions in the Science class need the awakening and sigs, and that Gamora also suffers from the same problem in that her Godslayer Strike is useless without the awakening.
▪ Utility. Miles is very light on utility, with no immunities (c'mon I can understand why Gamora has no immunities but Miles defo should've had Shock immunity) and only the aforementioned Miss and Taunt abilities as actual utility, both of which are relatively niche. He has no power control, weak heal prevention, and has no method of countering Nullify and Stagger, all 3 being main staples of Science utility. Considering the sigs you need to invest into Miles to make his damage amazing, I'd see Red Guardian/Yellowjacket, both needing the sigs for improved damage, as superior options to dump sigs into since their utility is much better when compared to Miles.
▪ Time. To maximize his Shock damage you need to go for Heavy then SP1 then SP3 and then finally SP2. That's quite a long cycle for a champion. For average length fights I'd recommend just Heavy then straight for SP2.
▪ Most of Miles' Debuffs are basically fodder for the SP2 increased Shock potency. Heavy Rupture is meh and cannot stack, SP1 Weakness is very niche especially when he can just Evade and Miss stuff, and SP3 Physical Vulnerability and Power Sting both don't serve too much of a purpose as well. Having a 50-sec Power Sting without the ability to retrigger it is honestly stupid. I'd like to see some Debuffs with actual use like a Slow on SP1, or a Petrify on SP3, this also ties into the issue of Miles lacking utility.
▪ Playstyle. I couldn't quite get off intercepts in ROL due to the passive AI, making the second challenge quite difficult to complete, so I moved to LOL where I found this problem: His challenges do not work well with each other at all. By adopting a passive playstyle, you focus on completing the parry and dex challenges while slowly working through the land hits challenge. By adopting an aggressive playstyle, you focus on completing the land hits challenge while the other two go slow. At times I would need to stall to get all 3 challenges to be completed at the same time for maximum SP2 damage, which results in a lot of wasted time doing that. Wish that there were some other way in doing these challenges without having to mix between being aggressive and defensive, which is just kinda weird to do.

Verdict:
Bit disappointed by this buff considering that it's been hyped for half a year now. Spider-Camo VFX is smooth and well-done, but did you really need so much time just to make an invisibility VFX? lol. New animations would've been nice but don't fix what's not broken I guess.
I'd compare Miles to Overseer in terms of strength, both have niche utility and need more than a bit of time to get into their damage. Both will have their uses but honestly I don't see myself ranking Miles over, say, IHulk or Spider-Gwen anytime soon.

Funny how they had Bishop & Diablo in July, both absolute bangers, and then Venompool & King Groot in August, both also very well-received, and then once they cut it down to two buffs a month and promise us better quality we get the relatively weakest buffs for a long while. Honest opinion is that Kabam don't need to make every single champion Magneto-level OP, but to at least make them relevant and usable options in the current state of the game. ESPECIALLY the tune-ups, with Ronin/Hood/Gamora those have all been dreadful and a bit of feedback from players using, say, beta servers should be enough to pinpoint where the problems are with the respective champ.

Let me know what y'all think of the Miles buff!

Comments

Rookiie

It's a useless buff, but it's a fun one.

Iron_Patriot_is_lit

Yeah agreed. This was awfully disappointing for something that took so long. And for a fan favorite character too. Honestly this whole year has been pretty disappointing both with most buffs and most new champions.

BitterSteel

Funny how they had Bishop & Diablo in July, both absolute bangers, and then Venompool & King Groot in August, both also very well-received, and then once they cut it down to two buffs a month and promise us better quality we get the relatively weakest buffs for a long while. Honest opinion is that Kabam don't need to make every single champion Magneto-level OP, but to at least make them relevant and usable options in the current state of the game. ESPECIALLY the tune-ups, with Ronin/Hood/Gamora those have all been dreadful and a bit of feedback from players using, say, beta servers should be enough to pinpoint where the problems are with the respective champ.

I’m really enjoying Miles’ buff to be honest. I do agree with the vast majority of your analysis, but I disagree on this point on the quality of buffs. Gamora’s buff is a flop, it’s awful and I very much agreed with your write up on her too.

Miles buff is not anywhere near the gamora buff. It has taken a champ from an absolute dud and it’s made him fun, he does have some utility, I think the taunt is great and the miss for unblockable is super useful. His damage is also really nice, especially with a synergy or two from very good champions. If you throw any of Stealthy, Ham, Mr Fantastic, Mr Negative, Vulture on a team with him they are amazing champions too.

He’s not the strongest, and I agree he’s lacking that one last bit of utility to round him out. A slow, or a strong accessible petrify, and shock immunity would have gone a long way to get that last bit of use. But overall, I’m very happy with the buff. He’s fun to use, nice damage and some nice unblockable special utility, taunt and miss/evade safety net.

I’m not arguing he’s the best buff ever and wow end-game champ alert over here, but in terms of a buff? I think he’s definitely on the lower end of a successful buff. It’s harsh to lump him in with gamora, nova and ronin.

Player_Slasher

Funny how they had Bishop & Diablo in July, both absolute bangers, and then Venompool & King Groot in August, both also very well-received, and then once they cut it down to two buffs a month and promise us better quality we get the relatively weakest buffs for a long while. Honest opinion is that Kabam don't need to make every single champion Magneto-level OP, but to at least make them relevant and usable options in the current state of the game. ESPECIALLY the tune-ups, with Ronin/Hood/Gamora those have all been dreadful and a bit of feedback from players using, say, beta servers should be enough to pinpoint where the problems are with the respective champ.
I’m really enjoying Miles’ buff to be honest. I do agree with the vast majority of your analysis, but I disagree on this point on the quality of buffs. Gamora’s buff is a flop, it’s awful and I very much agreed with your write up on her too.

Miles buff is not anywhere near the gamora buff. It has taken a champ from an absolute dud and it’s made him fun, he does have some utility, I think the taunt is great and the miss for unblockable is super useful. His damage is also really nice, especially with a synergy or two from very good champions. If you throw any of Stealthy, Ham, Mr Fantastic, Mr Negative, Vulture on a team with him they are amazing champions too.

He’s not the strongest, and I agree he’s lacking that one last bit of utility to round him out. A slow, or a strong accessible petrify, and shock immunity would have gone a long way to get that last bit of use. But overall, I’m very happy with the buff. He’s fun to use, nice damage and some nice unblockable special utility, taunt and miss/evade safety net.

I’m not arguing he’s the best buff ever and wow end-game champ alert over here, but in terms of a buff? I think he’s definitely on the lower end of a successful buff. It’s harsh to lump him in with gamora, nova and ronin.

Oh ye should have worded that paragraph differently; wasn't targeted at Miles but more at the entire scope of the recent buffs. Definitely agree with you that Miles' buff actually changed stuff unlike Gamora's (he had nothing pre-buff lol) and his damage is at least a hundred times stronger now than before. That section bout Gamora/Nova/Ronin was just stating how unsuccessful all the recent tune-ups were, even after their decision to reduce the number of buffs to 'improve buff quality'. Honestly that's just lazy work from Kabam.

BitterSteel

Funny how they had Bishop & Diablo in July, both absolute bangers, and then Venompool & King Groot in August, both also very well-received, and then once they cut it down to two buffs a month and promise us better quality we get the relatively weakest buffs for a long while. Honest opinion is that Kabam don't need to make every single champion Magneto-level OP, but to at least make them relevant and usable options in the current state of the game. ESPECIALLY the tune-ups, with Ronin/Hood/Gamora those have all been dreadful and a bit of feedback from players using, say, beta servers should be enough to pinpoint where the problems are with the respective champ.
I’m really enjoying Miles’ buff to be honest. I do agree with the vast majority of your analysis, but I disagree on this point on the quality of buffs. Gamora’s buff is a flop, it’s awful and I very much agreed with your write up on her too.

Miles buff is not anywhere near the gamora buff. It has taken a champ from an absolute dud and it’s made him fun, he does have some utility, I think the taunt is great and the miss for unblockable is super useful. His damage is also really nice, especially with a synergy or two from very good champions. If you throw any of Stealthy, Ham, Mr Fantastic, Mr Negative, Vulture on a team with him they are amazing champions too.

He’s not the strongest, and I agree he’s lacking that one last bit of utility to round him out. A slow, or a strong accessible petrify, and shock immunity would have gone a long way to get that last bit of use. But overall, I’m very happy with the buff. He’s fun to use, nice damage and some nice unblockable special utility, taunt and miss/evade safety net.

I’m not arguing he’s the best buff ever and wow end-game champ alert over here, but in terms of a buff? I think he’s definitely on the lower end of a successful buff. It’s harsh to lump him in with gamora, nova and ronin.

Oh ye should have worded that paragraph differently; wasn't targeted at Miles but more at the entire scope of the recent buffs. Definitely agree with you that Miles' buff actually changed stuff unlike Gamora's (he had nothing pre-buff lol) and his damage is at least a hundred times stronger now than before. That section bout Gamora/Nova/Ronin was just stating how unsuccessful all the recent tune-ups were, even after their decision to reduce the number of buffs to 'improve buff quality'. Honestly that's just lazy work from Kabam.

Thanks for clarifying!

I would just add that I do think in terms of average buff, Miles’ is quite good. But in terms of overhauls? It is one of the weaker ones.

Id say, and this is a mixture of personal thoughts and what I’ve heard, that Miles overhaul is better than DDNF and Civil Warrior, probably a little worse than venompool’s and Howard’s, but not as good as Diablo, War Machine, mags x2, and BP OG.

thanks4playing

I love this analysis. Most writeups/reviews are just a regurgitation of the champion spotlight, but I appreciate how you tested various things and provided an assessment. E.g., testing it in ROL and LOL, and realizing that the 3 challenges don't really mesh well b/c two of them require an aggressive playstyle while the other a passive.

Your comparison with other options is also very helpful. E.g., how compared to other science, you get less utility and yet you need to both dupe and have high sig.

And your points about the poor testing and less buffs yet less quality are things that I hope both the community and Kabam take note of. When I heard about the cadence change, it was worded very well and I was optimistic but I had my suspicions. It's pretty embarrassing that Miles's one utility doesn't work against DH sp1. I've managed SDLCs before and that instance would have been the very first test case processed. There's not much to test in terms of Miles's utility: it's primarily this one ability, so how can it be released with such glaring bugs? All of this makes me feel like there are some severe personnel issues but that's a topic for another post.

Question: do you think Miles would be a tricky defender for AW?

Chikel

Question: do you think Miles would be a tricky defender for AW?

I honestly don't think so, Prof X counters him, HT does especially since Miles' sp1 is a projectile which feeds smoulders. The counter I've decided on is AA, don't use sp.
Massacre works too. Force him into block, sp2.
Otherwise, wait out his camo. It's doesn't last too long.

pete8388

Great write up. I think you captured the buff very well.

It’s the lack of utility that really is the issue for me. A slow would go a long ways since he can’t counter any of the main annoying champ defensive abilities; evade, unstoppable, miss, auto-block, tenacity, power gain, etc.

And I agree with the play style that it just doesn’t feel fluid needing to parry and intercept to maximize damage output.

He is far better than he was before and fun to mess around with, that’s for sure, but still wish there was a little something more

Sean_Who

I would like some more utility, but I think he's just good enough to avoid any uproar that will consider Kabam to make any changes, which is a shame.

Player_Slasher

Funny how they had Bishop & Diablo in July, both absolute bangers, and then Venompool & King Groot in August, both also very well-received, and then once they cut it down to two buffs a month and promise us better quality we get the relatively weakest buffs for a long while. Honest opinion is that Kabam don't need to make every single champion Magneto-level OP, but to at least make them relevant and usable options in the current state of the game. ESPECIALLY the tune-ups, with Ronin/Hood/Gamora those have all been dreadful and a bit of feedback from players using, say, beta servers should be enough to pinpoint where the problems are with the respective champ.
I’m really enjoying Miles’ buff to be honest. I do agree with the vast majority of your analysis, but I disagree on this point on the quality of buffs. Gamora’s buff is a flop, it’s awful and I very much agreed with your write up on her too.

Miles buff is not anywhere near the gamora buff. It has taken a champ from an absolute dud and it’s made him fun, he does have some utility, I think the taunt is great and the miss for unblockable is super useful. His damage is also really nice, especially with a synergy or two from very good champions. If you throw any of Stealthy, Ham, Mr Fantastic, Mr Negative, Vulture on a team with him they are amazing champions too.

He’s not the strongest, and I agree he’s lacking that one last bit of utility to round him out. A slow, or a strong accessible petrify, and shock immunity would have gone a long way to get that last bit of use. But overall, I’m very happy with the buff. He’s fun to use, nice damage and some nice unblockable special utility, taunt and miss/evade safety net.

I’m not arguing he’s the best buff ever and wow end-game champ alert over here, but in terms of a buff? I think he’s definitely on the lower end of a successful buff. It’s harsh to lump him in with gamora, nova and ronin.

Oh ye should have worded that paragraph differently; wasn't targeted at Miles but more at the entire scope of the recent buffs. Definitely agree with you that Miles' buff actually changed stuff unlike Gamora's (he had nothing pre-buff lol) and his damage is at least a hundred times stronger now than before. That section bout Gamora/Nova/Ronin was just stating how unsuccessful all the recent tune-ups were, even after their decision to reduce the number of buffs to 'improve buff quality'. Honestly that's just lazy work from Kabam.
Thanks for clarifying!

I would just add that I do think in terms of average buff, Miles’ is quite good. But in terms of overhauls? It is one of the weaker ones.

Id say, and this is a mixture of personal thoughts and what I’ve heard, that Miles overhaul is better than DDNF and Civil Warrior, probably a little worse than venompool’s and Howard’s, but not as good as Diablo, War Machine, mags x2, and BP OG.

Ye I'd put him in a similar position to Civil Warrior/War Machine. Acceptable buffs but not too hyped about in the community due to impractical playstyle/lack of utility respectively. Miles kind of fits into both but he does some special stuff as well so I don't see him dropping to DDHK or Maw level.

I love this analysis. Most writeups/reviews are just a regurgitation of the champion spotlight, but I appreciate how you tested various things and provided an assessment. E.g., testing it in ROL and LOL, and realizing that the 3 challenges don't really mesh well b/c two of them require an aggressive playstyle while the other a passive.

Your comparison with other options is also very helpful. E.g., how compared to other science, you get less utility and yet you need to both dupe and have high sig.

And your points about the poor testing and less buffs yet less quality are things that I hope both the community and Kabam take note of. When I heard about the cadence change, it was worded very well and I was optimistic but I had my suspicions. It's pretty embarrassing that Miles's one utility doesn't work against DH sp1. I've managed SDLCs before and that instance would have been the very first test case processed. There's not much to test in terms of Miles's utility: it's primarily this one ability, so how can it be released with such glaring bugs? All of this makes me feel like there are some severe personnel issues but that's a topic for another post.

Question: do you think Miles would be a tricky defender for AW?

Thanks mate! He might be a tad bit annoying on defense as few counter both Miss and Evade. Nick, Prof X, or AAR can shut that down, but for the average champion he might pose some problems.

Great write up. I think you captured the buff very well.

It’s the lack of utility that really is the issue for me. A slow would go a long ways since he can’t counter any of the main annoying champ defensive abilities; evade, unstoppable, miss, auto-block, tenacity, power gain, etc.

And I agree with the play style that it just doesn’t feel fluid needing to parry and intercept to maximize damage output.

He is far better than he was before and fun to mess around with, that’s for sure, but still wish there was a little something more

Ye he defo needs a bit more utility considering he has no immunities. Slow as a Camo effect on SP1 would be better than just increasing the duration of Weakness as that's pretty useless imo. Damage is on point but again wouldn't invest in him over Red Guardian/Yellowjacket who have similar damage capabilities but much more utility.

I would like some more utility, but I think he's just good enough to avoid any uproar that will consider Kabam to make any changes, which is a shame.

Ye reminds me of DDHK, people did call for a re-buff due to his suicide-unfriendliness, but it was still an overhaul and he definitely has his uses after the buff. Same case with Miles just without the suicide masteries consideration, and there's a lot to like about the buff as well so Kabam's probably not gonna consider re-buffing him. If anything Gamora should be the one to get that treatment (but I'd rather not as that would be wasting another valuable buff spot not unlike Hood's situation).

BitterSteel

Oh woah hold on there I’m gonna have to disagree with that war machine disrespect. War machine is an absolute beast. Apoc/bishop any other mutant killer. And a ton of other champs too.

His energy resistance, tanky armour and regen, suppression, armour break, cleanse and mad fury is insane. He destroys AW bosses like it’s nothing. He’s amazing in long match ups, and has really respectable damage in short ones too

A friend of mine got an 18 hit kill of WS with War Machine.

His prowess removal is also gonna be really useful for fighting Kitty Pryde. War Machine is nuts, and mad underrated by the community. Hopefully more will see over time

TC1

I have been using 6* dup sig 20 Miles a bit since buff, certainly not enough to create an awesome review like this. few notes i have personally would be:

- I don’t feel he needs synergies at all. He actually has an attack synergy with Doom that i like so i could run them both on team

-The fury buffs from dup fall way to quickly, either a refresh mechanic when you gain a charge or pause mechanic would be much better.

-He is easy to use and i feel he will be very helpful for player looking to become uncollected. outside of that, i will gladly use him in Cavalier event quest. His damage is actually pretty good for short fights.

- I would need to test more but he does seem to be the first ACTUAL counter to Tigra. With her unblockable specials and aggressive AI, he can punish that very well.

Player_Slasher

Oh woah hold on there I’m gonna have to disagree with that war machine disrespect. War machine is an absolute beast. Apoc/bishop any other mutant killer. And a ton of other champs too.

His energy resistance, tanky armour and regen, suppression, armour break, cleanse and mad fury is insane. He destroys AW bosses like it’s nothing. He’s amazing in long match ups, and has really respectable damage in short ones too

A friend of mine got an 18 hit kill of WS with War Machine.

His prowess removal is also gonna be really useful for fighting Kitty Pryde. War Machine is nuts, and mad underrated by the community. Hopefully more will see over time

Ye I don't own a War Machine so can't say much about him, but people would say that he lacks generic utility, the pre-fights are not as good as Odin's, and takes a bit to get into his damage. 3.7k Armor Rating and 6.6k Armor Reduction does sound nuts on paper though, he's probably very tanky and has some decent damage potential. Also had no idea about the prowess removal ability, thanks for enlightening me on that, honestly thought Nimrod would be the first champ to be able to remove passive Prowess on his base abilities lol. Sounds like a top-tier counter to Bishop and Kitty. Heck you might just have put another champ on my wanted list lol!

Civil Warrior would be a better comparison then. Some cool stuff that both can do, not the best champs out there but obviously much improved from their previous versions since they were originally worthless. But with the last two months we have had really great buffs like Bishop, Diablo, Venompool, King Groot (and I don't own a single one of them smh); Miles I don't believe is as good as these guys and this was after they cut it down to 2 buffs a month for 'improved buff quality'. Well the tune-up quality remained the same and the overhaul quality decreased. Does make it seem like it's just an excuse for the devs to do less work tbh.