Cassie Lang and Ant-Man (Future) Balancing Updates!

MCOC Team

Hey all,

Balance Team here again with an update on Cassie Lang and Ant-Man (Future)

Cassie Lang

As an attacker, Cassie features Power Stings, strong tank abilities and immunities with access to solid damage in the right matchup. On defense, she has a few tricks to look out for but can be easily answered by the Skill class (Purify, Combo Manipulation, Anti-Evade).

When looking at her Battlegrounds and Alliance War matchups, we’re seeing her effectively take down some of the more notorious Mystic defenders such as Mojo and Spider-Man Supreme. As intended, she’s currently one of the tankier characters in the Science class with some sneaky ways to mitigate chip damage (Taunt, Phys Resist, Inequity Mastery) and so far she’s settled in nicely with other tanky Science comparables like Mister Fantastic. 

Cassie has a few tricks that an attacker needs to answer when fighting her: the Evade from her Sig which will trigger Power Sting Debuffs, and her Combo Detonation from her Sp1. These weren't meant to be Roadblock level tricks, as mentioned above and we’re happy to see her performing in line with those targets. All in all, we’re happy with how Cassie has landed in the Battlerealm and will be leaving her as is!

Ant-Man (Future)

Equipped with Glancing, Damage Mitigation, Regeneration, Power Drain, Special Attack 2 burst and more, Ant-Man is designed to be an offensive-leaning dual threat.

From a matchup win rate perspective, Ant-Man is a great counter to most Mutant defenders, including top ones like Domino and Bishop who account for a huge share of his total fights so far. His strong performance there is offset by his mixed performance in out-of-class matchups, so we’re happy with this powerful yet somewhat specialized status. 

Defensively, Ant-Man has been good without standing out much in the Battlegrounds metas so far. However, in alliance war he’s being placed on multiple nodes that synergize with either his Nano-Amor Ups or Regeneration effects, forcing a variety of attacking choices across those different encounters. We feel he’s meeting the goal of a strong but not roadblock defender. 

While some of his Balance Attribute data is coming in slightly high compared to target, his usage data indicates this is due to his concentration in hard-counter scenarios, not his abilities being overtuned. We don’t see a need to add or remove power from his abilities to help him better meet targets or find his role within The Battlerealm. 

With that said, Ant-Man has had two bugs since release that we want to address. These bugs are:

1. Ant-Man’s Special Attack 2 description incorrectly indicates it deals on-hit instant Disintegration damage all the time. It actually only deals that burst damage while Power Detonation Passives are on his opponent.
2. Ant-Man’s Glancing effects are missing the -50% Damage Reduction, -100% Ability Accuracy Reduction, and anti-Critical Hit properties of Glanced attacks. Ant-Man’s Glances currently only provide the Glancing trigger, such as for his own abilities like gaining a Nano-Armor Up on Glance. 

Our goal in this bug fix process is to ensure his ability effects and descriptions match, that his original ability intent is showing up in gameplay, and that his balanced state within the game is maintained. Taking into account these goals, his original design intent, and his current strong performance, our plan is to leave Ant-Man’s Special Attack 2 as it currently functions and add the expected effects to his Glances after tuning their potency to values that will enhance his defensive strength without giving him too much extra utility and sustain on attack, too. 

For specifics on what we’re exploring so far, we’re testing the following for all hits Ant-Man Glances:

• Full anti-Critical Hit 
• 20% Damage Reduction 
• 40% Ability Accuracy Reduction

Again, despite some of these being lower than default Glancing values, all effects will be additions to Ant-Man’s current power.

To help us accomplish our goals with this bug fix, we’re putting its tuning through the rebalance beta process. We feel the impact of the Glancing effect bug fix is large enough that it benefits from the same process and community engagement that any usual balance tuning changes would. 

What’s Next?

A balance cycle to add Glancing effects for Ant-Man (Future)! This tuning timeline will be:

• 40.1 (July) + 41.0 (August): Ant-Man lands on the CCP Beta with his Glancing bug fix and tuning
• 41.1 (September): Ant-Man full release with changes

As a reminder for other Champion rebalance releases, Mantis will update in July followed by Absorbing Man and Baron Zemo in August.