Act 8.3 Beta Exploration: The Lowdown
Rookiie
Member Posts: 4,821 ★★★★★
Mission Act 8.3 Beta Exploration accomplished, and here I am today to give you the lowdown on this controversial yet exciting piece of content. It was my first time participating in a Beta, even though I have been invited before, and I was really excited to test it and provide valuable feedback to Kabam.
For those of you that do not have access to the beta, well, get ready for a meta filled to the brim with Protection, Unblockable, Relic / Striker nodes and an AI that knows exactly how and when to get the better of you. Now, I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding 'forced use' of Relics / Strikers, but believe me, half of them were the most enjoyable and rewarding nodes to play. If Kabam are going to push us to use them, at least the way they implemented some of them shows promise. Below are my Top 5 Favourite Moments from Act 8.3 Beta, some of which display the use of a Relic / Striker:
1) Going ham with Gwen on Corvus:
2) Nuke City with Nimrod:
3) I'll take that SP3 thank you very much:
4) 345k damage from a Relic / Striker:
5) Crit Jackpot with Hercules:
Having said that, some paths or nodes x champ combinations were downright unenjoyable, including some of the ones with Relics / Strikers. One of the things I noticed was that the Relics / Strikers button is basically a pseudo-Special Attack, and that really messes with some of the champions that rely on an SP1-SP2 rotation. What I mean to say is that, some champions require an SP1 to be thrown, but the Relic / Striker node pushes you to switch off the node first, which shifts the priority towards that, de-prioritising the champion's rotation. In some cases, found it quite difficult to pull of champion rotations, and I believe that champions with simpler rotations are really going to rise in stock. Nick Fury and Hercules are excellent examples of that. To illustrate the point that I am trying to make, please find two screenshots of Attuma (R4) and Nick Fury (R3), taking on two champions in the same path which requires you to launch a Relic / Striker to switch off the node. Fury completes the fight 5.7x faster than Attuma (both had class advantage):
Let's move on to the feedback that I have provided to Kabam.
1) 8.3.1 Assassin Striker node - 75% Protection until you switch it off for 15 seconds using a Relic / Striker, so typically that's the first thing you want to do. It's very difficult to play with an SP1 here because you want to keep Protection switched off for as long as you can. Special Attacks are also Unblockable. My feedback here is that there are too many things to juggle, and that this was very unenjoyable to play.
2) 8.3.2 Stellar Striker node - Defender takes 50% less damage unless you gain an Aptitude buff (which does nothing significant) by activating a Striker. Defenders also go Unblockable here. This was long, boring and seriously unenjoyable.
3) 8.3.5 Star Asunder - This was something else and Professor X needs a serious nerf. 75% less damage taken by the Defender unless they are inflicted with an Armour Break debuff which triggers when a Cosmic champion inflicts a debuff on them. Sounds easy right? Except Cosmic champs are not the most debuff-heavy class, and Kabam threw Mix Master as well as Unblockable (yes, again) into the mix. To add to that, Professor X has Falter and Unblockable in his base kit, so you're basically hitting a ghost.
4) 8.3.6 Crushing Striker - Super confusing. Half the time I was Unblockable and didn’t know why. There was no description in the nodes (or icons) that indicated I would go Unblockable, so maybe there is a bug here. It wasn’t enjoyable at all either. Fights were slow and generally very unrewarding.
5) 8.3.1 Gorr boss - Wow, his Regen was extremely difficult to manage and I needed to experiment and have multiple tries to get him down. Reminds me of that notorious OP Venompool in Deadpoolooza. The usual suspects in Mister Fantastic, Torch and iBom all struggled to suppress his Regen. It's only because he had so many buffs that I decided that Longshot. This one is going to cause community outrage, and I'll be surprised if he doesn't get nerfed.
6) 8.3.4 Wong boss - Another one likely to cause outrage. 30% increase in Heavy launch, which he gains Power from, so he whiffs Heavy Attacks and boom he's at an SP3 and it's over. Speechless.
In conclusion, it's everything that you would want from endgame content. It's challenging, it's fun and frustrating, at 1% the AI goes Super Saiyan and knocks you out, that sort of thing. I do think that you need ample resources to do this with R3s and R4s. So for the average player, make sure you're doing this with R4s across the board at the minimum. R5s and 7-star R2s if you're on the lower end of the skill spectrum. Hope you enjoyed reading this and let me know your thoughts below!
For those of you that do not have access to the beta, well, get ready for a meta filled to the brim with Protection, Unblockable, Relic / Striker nodes and an AI that knows exactly how and when to get the better of you. Now, I know that there is a lot of controversy surrounding 'forced use' of Relics / Strikers, but believe me, half of them were the most enjoyable and rewarding nodes to play. If Kabam are going to push us to use them, at least the way they implemented some of them shows promise. Below are my Top 5 Favourite Moments from Act 8.3 Beta, some of which display the use of a Relic / Striker:
1) Going ham with Gwen on Corvus:
2) Nuke City with Nimrod:
3) I'll take that SP3 thank you very much:
4) 345k damage from a Relic / Striker:
5) Crit Jackpot with Hercules:
Having said that, some paths or nodes x champ combinations were downright unenjoyable, including some of the ones with Relics / Strikers. One of the things I noticed was that the Relics / Strikers button is basically a pseudo-Special Attack, and that really messes with some of the champions that rely on an SP1-SP2 rotation. What I mean to say is that, some champions require an SP1 to be thrown, but the Relic / Striker node pushes you to switch off the node first, which shifts the priority towards that, de-prioritising the champion's rotation. In some cases, found it quite difficult to pull of champion rotations, and I believe that champions with simpler rotations are really going to rise in stock. Nick Fury and Hercules are excellent examples of that. To illustrate the point that I am trying to make, please find two screenshots of Attuma (R4) and Nick Fury (R3), taking on two champions in the same path which requires you to launch a Relic / Striker to switch off the node. Fury completes the fight 5.7x faster than Attuma (both had class advantage):
Let's move on to the feedback that I have provided to Kabam.
1) 8.3.1 Assassin Striker node - 75% Protection until you switch it off for 15 seconds using a Relic / Striker, so typically that's the first thing you want to do. It's very difficult to play with an SP1 here because you want to keep Protection switched off for as long as you can. Special Attacks are also Unblockable. My feedback here is that there are too many things to juggle, and that this was very unenjoyable to play.
2) 8.3.2 Stellar Striker node - Defender takes 50% less damage unless you gain an Aptitude buff (which does nothing significant) by activating a Striker. Defenders also go Unblockable here. This was long, boring and seriously unenjoyable.
3) 8.3.5 Star Asunder - This was something else and Professor X needs a serious nerf. 75% less damage taken by the Defender unless they are inflicted with an Armour Break debuff which triggers when a Cosmic champion inflicts a debuff on them. Sounds easy right? Except Cosmic champs are not the most debuff-heavy class, and Kabam threw Mix Master as well as Unblockable (yes, again) into the mix. To add to that, Professor X has Falter and Unblockable in his base kit, so you're basically hitting a ghost.
4) 8.3.6 Crushing Striker - Super confusing. Half the time I was Unblockable and didn’t know why. There was no description in the nodes (or icons) that indicated I would go Unblockable, so maybe there is a bug here. It wasn’t enjoyable at all either. Fights were slow and generally very unrewarding.
5) 8.3.1 Gorr boss - Wow, his Regen was extremely difficult to manage and I needed to experiment and have multiple tries to get him down. Reminds me of that notorious OP Venompool in Deadpoolooza. The usual suspects in Mister Fantastic, Torch and iBom all struggled to suppress his Regen. It's only because he had so many buffs that I decided that Longshot. This one is going to cause community outrage, and I'll be surprised if he doesn't get nerfed.
6) 8.3.4 Wong boss - Another one likely to cause outrage. 30% increase in Heavy launch, which he gains Power from, so he whiffs Heavy Attacks and boom he's at an SP3 and it's over. Speechless.
In conclusion, it's everything that you would want from endgame content. It's challenging, it's fun and frustrating, at 1% the AI goes Super Saiyan and knocks you out, that sort of thing. I do think that you need ample resources to do this with R3s and R4s. So for the average player, make sure you're doing this with R4s across the board at the minimum. R5s and 7-star R2s if you're on the lower end of the skill spectrum. Hope you enjoyed reading this and let me know your thoughts below!
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Comments
thank you for the detailed write up oh great one
I don't think Gorr will cause much outrage just because there are quite a few champions who can just shut down all his buffs and stop him from ever getting a regen buff. Trying to reverse the regen with petrify or other means seems more difficult than using someone like Longshot, Mordo, Wiccan, Claire, Mojo, Tigra or Rintrah who can all deal with him.
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