**WINTER OF WOE - BONUS OBJECTIVE POINT**
As previously announced, the team will be distributing an additional point toward milestones to anyone who completed the Absorbing Man fight in the first step of the Winter of Woe.
This point will be distributed at a later time as it requires the team to pull and analyze data.
The timeline has not been set, but work has started.
There is currently an issue where some Alliances are are unable to find a match in Alliance Wars, or are receiving Byes without getting the benefits of the Win. We will be adjusting the Season Points of the Alliances that are affected within the coming weeks, and will be working to compensate them for their missed Per War rewards as well.

Additionally, we are working to address an issue where new Members of an Alliance are unable to place Defenders for the next War after joining. We are working to address this, but it will require a future update.

An unexpected MVP in Battlegrounds: A Sam Wilson write-up

ErcarretErcarret Posts: 2,673 ★★★★★
edited June 2022 in General Discussion
Since my last write-up of Captain America (Sam Wilson) was pretty well-received, I figured I should do a follow-up with regards to my findings in Battlegrounds. I'll do a week-by-week breakdown. Throughout all of this, he has been an unawakened r2 6*.

Week 1: Masochism

I wasn't playing much BG this week since I was running through the monthly content. However, Sam doesn't strike me as someone who would do particularly well. Every time he would crit, he places a Rupture on the opponent that then triggers them to regenerate. Since he isn't a heavy-hitter in the damage department aside from those Ruptures, having them be purified and give the opponent a burst of health is just bad all around.

He can still deal with a lot of tricky defenders and can, therefore, possibly muscle through with the Ruptures as their abilities fail. But it was far from an ideal node for him. Couple that with my general lack of playing BG and he sat on the bench for most of it.

Week 2: Power Snack 2, Rise to Power 2

Now, this is where things start to get interesting. Power Snack will chew mightily on your armor ups, but while you'll have to be careful about not launching the opponent to an SP3, it's actually not too bad that the armor ups are nullified in and of itself. You'll get them back as passives, which is neat.

If you are able to time your Bulwark buff so that it sticks on you instead of being nullified, it also shuts down Rise to Power. One of the major problems with this node combination was that it was easy to push the opponent to an SP3 by knocking them down and then have them hammering into your block (especially with multi-hit special attacks) for a huge surge of power. That isn't a problem for Sam if his Bulwark buff is up since it decreases the opponent's ability accuracy when striking your block. You can use your heavies and special attacks without fear of Rise to Power punishing you afterward.

As long as your Bulwark buff isn't nullified. It takes some timing but if you get it right, you shut down the entire node.

Week 3: Safeguard

Sam was pretty good here. Since he deals DOT instead of crit damage (and with his SP2), he bypasses most of the node just fine. This is where I really began to see him shine. It's helped immensely by him shutting down a lot of tricky mutant defenders since his Recon Scan inflicts Cowardice, which reduces their special attack damage by 40%.

Week 4: Bubble Shield, Limber

This was fun! Sam completely shuts down Bubble Shield with his Bulwark buff, and after that, it's just a straight fight. The Limber node has been around since Act 5 so I think most players can play around it at this point.

Bits and bobs

I figured that I should at least mention some things that have helped me here and there but didn't make it into any specific section above. More precisely, how his armor up effects give him various pieces of utilities.

First off: his insane auto-block chance. There are two factors that govern his chance to auto-block – how many armor up effects he has (which gives him up to a 75% chance to auto-block) and how many prowess the opponent has (up to 100%). This has saved my bacon on several occasions. The most notable moment was a fight against Apocalypse where I was down to the low single-digits of my health and in pure desperation completely fudged a dex when Apocalypse threw his SP1. I auto-blocked the first hit, which completely took me by surprise. Instead of holding onto my block, I tried to continue with my (failed) dex, which I mistimed once more, only for me to auto-block the next hit of the special attack once again. It was a messy situation but I got out of it without any more lost health and could retaliate for the win.

In addition to this, armor ups also allow you to parry non-contact attacks (which makes dealing with Domino or Professor X much easier, for example) and block Unblockable special attacks from mutant opponents. This is useful in Bubble Shield if your Bulwark buff ever falls off mid-special.

Furthermore, each armor up also decreases the opponent's bleed ability accuracy by 25%. There have been several times where I've messed up and taken Apocalypse's heavy to my face or a full five-hit combo from Nick Fury, only to find myself completely free of any pesky bleeds.

Conclusions

All in all, I found him really useful for two of the four weeks, and at least usable for a third one. It was really only Masochism that gave him pause.

This isn't to say that he's an absolute killing machine. I've had plenty of embarrassing fights as well where I've just...fudged it. Let's just say that he isn't a very good Peni Parker counter. At all. I know that some people say that you can learn how to play around Peni with any champion and don't really need specific counters, and while I think that's largely true, I'd wager that they haven't tried taking her on with Sam while under time pressure.

However, I really want to awaken my Sam in order to test out a hypothesis of mine. See, every time an opponent's abilities fail to trigger due to reduced ability accuracy, they're inflicted with a Rupture. Since his Bulwark prevents nodes like Bubble Shield and Rise to Power to activate, I think he should be amazing against champions with multi-hit special attacks. If I'm correct, blocking all hits in Punisher 2099's SP1 and SP2 (9 and 8 hits, respectively), Guillotine 2099's SP2 (9 hits), Howard the Duck's SP2 (9 hits) and Warlock's SP2 (10 hits) would rack up a huge amount of Ruptures on the opponent. If you manage to squeeze in an SP1 of your own right before that, which decreases your opponent's Physical Resistance, well, that sounds like a delicate recipe for carnage and mayhem.

I really want to try that out when I awaken him.

Comments

  • Great writeup!!
    He is incredibly useful, there is a Sam wilson chat on line if you are interested. Ive been mainly looking for him for his really good war utility, but great to know his utility in BGs as well!
    makes me more jealous, i want a Sam :/
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