Most Valuable Skill to rank up?

I have an absolute boatload of Skill ISO expiring soon and want to expand on my R3 Skill champs. But lately, through reading a lot of other people's posts, plus a couple of my own, it seems really tough (ie a lot of recommendations and not just one or two main consensus) to figure out what Skill to invest in. So I thought I'd make a poll.

**I am currently Thronebreaker, wanting to become Paragon, beginning to explore Act 7**

(If you care to see the majority of my 6* roster I have a recent thread in the General Discussion)

Comments

Ansh_A

Falcon is an easy choice.

His lock on is one of the best abilities in the game. His health pool and attack is on the lower side and therefore you want to maximize damage when locked on and minimize damage when ability is in cool down. He therefore needs the rank up to be more effective.

SecondSkriller

Bruh people saying Falcon when there’s Masacre on this list…

[Deleted User]

I've had my Falcon at rank 2 for a bit and have not really needed or wanted to use him. Masacre is amazing for BGs, just decent everywhere else. BWDO and BP are just generally amazing. I use BP OG on every bleed path I come across and BWDO on any skill path that doesn't require Bleed.

Overall, I don't have Black Cat myself so not too sure about her, but my personal recommendations would be to take BP, Black Cat and BWDO to rank 2 and just use them as needed throughout Act 7. Whoever you like/use most after that should go to rank 3. That was my strat before I tackled Act 7 and it worked out pretty well.

SonOfArgu16

If you're aiming for paragon, I would rank up White Widow. She was a big help for act 7 being one of the few champs able to inflict quick debuffs especially shock

Ultragamer

Falcon best here he’s crazy good I’d rank mine if 7* didn’t exist

Ansh_A

@AngelMcNugget, to each their own. I had Falcon as a 6r1 for 6 months because i found his defense way below average and his damage to be below average. Then season 3 of battlegrounds came with that electrical defense and i was forced to rethink my roster. Found that Falcon countered the node and took him to r3 to reach GC that season. Since then, Falcon has gone to r4 and makes my deck every battlegrounds, half the time in my aw attack team and most difficult quests.

He is a simple case of when you make an adjustment to use him, you realize how powerful that lock on effect is and ignore the lack of damage or defense. He is like Human Torch in a way, poor stats but excellent utility and damage that adds up when you know how to use effectively.

Malreck04

I wanted to vote black cat but I reached around the back of my screen with my finger and messed up

[Deleted User]

@AngelMcNugget, to each their own. I had Falcon as a 6r1 for 6 months because i found his defense way below average and his damage to be below average. Then season 3 of battlegrounds came with that electrical defense and i was forced to rethink my roster. Found that Falcon countered the node and took him to r3 to reach GC that season. Since then, Falcon has gone to r4 and makes my deck every battlegrounds, half the time in my aw attack team and most difficult quests.

He is a simple case of when you make an adjustment to use him, you realize how powerful that lock on effect is and ignore the lack of damage or defense. He is like Human Torch in a way, poor stats but excellent utility and damage that adds up when you know how to use effectively.

I just don't think he'd be all that good for Act 7 and 8. I've taken a lot of the paths made for Skill champions since it's possibly my most developed class. Most of the nodes are designed to give massive benefit to champions who have easy access to Bleed, have any DoT debuff (like Shock/Incinerate) or purify debuffs on themselves. Those nodes would give little to no benefit to Falcon and would ultimately just make any path with him extremely slow and difficult comparatively.

I know his Lock On is usually an insanely easy and simple way to shut down annoying nodes/matchups, but Act 7 and 8 are designed to reward players for diversifying their roster and making use of a wide range of utility, while Falcon is sort of designed to be the opposite. I think eventually all 5 of these champions should get the rankup, but BWDO and BP are just the two I believe should be prioritized.

Ercarret

I would say either Black Cat or Falcon. They both do the same thing - defensive ability accuracy reduction - in slightly different ways. Falcon has his Lock-On that reduces it by 100% right off the gate as long as you can just dash back and hold block for a second or so. Black Cat reduces the opponent's DAA by 2% every hit (or 4% against Science champs), up to a total of -60%. When she launches an SP2, she inflicts a Sabotage debuff that makes that DAAR go up to a total of -100%.

Falcon's Lock-On has a set duration after which it has a cooldown, while Black Cat can keep the DAAR up almost infinitely after she does reach -100% since every hit that prevents an effect pauses the Sabotage debuff. As such, they work just as well against most champions but have some champions that they work better against than the other champion.

For example, if you're fighting Electro or someone else who reflect damage, you probably want that -100% reduction right off the bat (so, Falcon) so that you don't take any damage when you hit him. You'll have to pause once Lock-On ends and dance around for a bit, but when it's on again, you can go back in. Black Cat can get there eventually but she'll take a bit of damage in the meantime. Once she does, however, she'll often keep it up for the rest of the fight.

I find Black Cat more useful in situations where it's not necessary to fail absolutely everything in the beginning of the fight. Fighting someone like Thing or Hulkling, for example. Yeah, they can gain a few rock stacks or regens/indestructible buffs at the start of the fight, but when I'm fully ramped up, they'll just melt. With Falcon, you can deal with them effectively in bursts. If they don't die during those bursts, they become annoying to fight for a while after as you Lock-On is on its cooldown. Then they become easy to deal with again.

Personally, I prefer Black Cat.