Black Cat is a God-Tier Mystic counter

Ercarret

I've been fighting Mystic champions with Black Cat all month long. She's a surprisingly good counter to a lot of the toughest ones. You know the ones where you usually need to bring someone to specifically deal with their annoying abilities? Yeah, Black Cat is that specific someone.

Those she fights in the video and why she's so good vs them:

* Absorbing Man: Not really a counter to him per se but I included the fight anyway because she rinses him. I'm curious to see how well she works against him without the BG node that made her a goddess vs practically everyone.

* Rintrah: Shuts off his mystical charges, which neuters him completely.

* Mangog: Not really a counter, per se, but rather able to circumvent a lot of his BS by being able to comfortably evade his big scary SP2 so that he doesn't spam SP1s, meaning he won't soar up to his Enraged state and become unblockable/unstoppable.

* Morningstar: No more bleed debuffs!

* Man-Thing: No more poison debuffs!

* America Chavez: Evades her big scary SP2 even if it's unblockable, and also shuts off and punishes her damage reflection.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I7-sqemQulo&feature=youtu.be

She's definitely one of the best Skill champions in the game.

Ayden_noah1

Thanks for the video. I'm not familar with her but after seeing the video, I will need to try her out.

Ercarret

If anyone gets anything out of these videos, I'm happy!

The general gist of her is that she decreases the opponent's defensive ability accuracy by 2% per hit in her combo (or 4% against Science champions), up to 60%. Then she lowers it an additional 40% with the help of her Sabotage debuff on her SP2. When that debuff is up, she deals a burst of direct damage every time an ability fails on the opponent. When you have champions like America Chavez, where you'd normally take reflected damage with every strike, you instead deal that burst damage with every strike.

She is amazing. I only showcased how she deals with Mystic champions here, but she can deal with so many other champions and so many nodes. It's crazy. She's wildly slept on.

Armageddøn

Love my 7* Black cat, hoping to dupe her from my next loyalty crystal. She was my Act 7 Carina MVP I had so much fun using her

Ercarret

Yeah, a mate of mine pulled her as a 7* and has been tearing through stuff with her as well. Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous.

I actually had an idea for a "So you pulled a 7* Black Cat? Here's how to get through Act 7 for the CC" video, but we'll see about that. I'm still working on the CC myself so it'll probably have to happen after that (if at all).

PantherusNZ

Does she need to be woke to pull of this stuff? I've got her sitting at R1 because I've been focussing on Nick Fury, Kingpin, and Kate Bishop, but this might prompt me to put more attention on her

Ercarret

She's got all of her damage and defensive ability accuracy reduction right from the get-go without having to be awakened, so she's a great champion even without her sig ability. What her awakened ability does is give her 9 combo shields and an X% chance (depending on sig level) to evade attacks per combo shield remaining. At max sig, you get 11,11% chance to evade per combo shield, meaning a 99,99% chance at the start of the fight. Then, whenever you get struck or you evade, you lose a combo shield and your chance to evade goes down by 11,11%.

I really like this ability because it allows you to both play really aggressively and to evade some tricky special attacks if the need arises (such as Mangog and America Chavez's in the video), but it's not strictly necessary. Some of her best matches are vs champs like Hulkling and Thing, and neither of them have hard-to-dex specials so there isn't a pressing need to evade anything with them.

In the end, it's a neat ability to have but not an absolutely vital one by any means.

DrZola

You sold me on her weeks ago. Just gets better and better…

Dr. Zola

Adv

Great video. I had one at R3. Will play her more and learn

captain_rogers

What is that evade thing?are you referring to her combo meter sig ability? Does it evades all attacks of a special attack? That's awesome.
Btw is there any synergy for black cat worth mentioning?

Ercarret

captain_rogers said:

What is that evade thing?are you referring to her combo meter sig ability? Does it evades all attacks of a special attack? That's awesome.
Btw is there any synergy for black cat worth mentioning?

Yes, her evade is tied to her sig ability. It gives you 9 combo shields that not only protect your combo meter if you were to be struck but also give you a stacking chance to evade. At sig 1, they each give you a 4% chance to evade (for a total of 36% at 9 combo shields) while, at sig 200, they each give you an 11,11% chance (for a total of 99,99% at 9 combo shields). Then, as you lose combo shields by either evading attacks or getting struck, the chance to evade goes down.

You get a flat 1 second of evading. Any attack that can be evaded during that window, can be evaded. (Assuming you're dashing towards the opponent.) However, if a special attack would take 1,5 seconds to complete, you'd eventually get struck (or at least have to block the last portion of it).

It's a really neat ability, kind of similar to Kitty Pryde's ability to phase through attacks or Silk's "I can evade everything!" ability.

As for synergies, I don't typically use any but she has quite a lot of them. The one that sticks out to me is one with Longshot and Domino where she starts the fight with a combo of 40. Since her defensive ability accuracy reduction is (in part) tied to her combo meter, that allows you to start fully ramped up and have 60% DAAR from the go. This can be a really good thing if you're fighting a champion or a node that you can't deal with "eventually", when you've built up your combo meter. Think someone like Electro that damages you with every strike. I also imagine that it would be very useful in AW since you have those power start boosts that allow you to start with 1 bar of power. That way, you'd only be one bar of power away from placing the Sabotage debuff on the opponent and start doing damage, rather than the usual two bars of power and a combo of 30.

Viking_St3v3

Ercarret said:

captain_rogers said:

What is that evade thing?are you referring to her combo meter sig ability? Does it evades all attacks of a special attack? That's awesome.
Btw is there any synergy for black cat worth mentioning?

Yes, her evade is tied to her sig ability. It gives you 9 combo shields that not only protect your combo meter if you were to be struck but also give you a stacking chance to evade. At sig 1, they each give you a 4% chance to evade (for a total of 36% at 9 combo shields) while, at sig 200, they each give you an 11,11% chance (for a total of 99,99% at 9 combo shields). Then, as you lose combo shields by either evading attacks or getting struck, the chance to evade goes down.

You get a flat 1 second of evading. Any attack that can be evaded during that window, can be evaded. (Assuming you're dashing towards the opponent.) However, if a special attack would take 1,5 seconds to complete, you'd eventually get struck (or at least have to block the last portion of it).

It's a really neat ability, kind of similar to Kitty Pryde's ability to phase through attacks or Silk's "I can evade everything!" ability.

As for synergies, I don't typically use any but she has quite a lot of them. The one that sticks out to me is one with Longshot and Domino where she starts the fight with a combo of 40. Since her defensive ability accuracy reduction is (in part) tied to her combo meter, that allows you to start fully ramped up and have 60% DAAR from the go. This can be a really good thing if you're fighting a champion or a node that you can't deal with "eventually", when you've built up your combo meter. Think someone like Electro that damages you with every strike. I also imagine that it would be very useful in AW since you have those power start boosts that allow you to start with 1 bar of power. That way, you'd only be one bar of power away from placing the Sabotage debuff on the opponent and start doing damage, rather than the usual two bars of power and a combo of 30.

I have an R3 6* duped Black Cat and love her but did not totally understand her and how she works. This thread is super useful. Thanks for posting. Made the debate for my 4th R4 6* that much harder.

Milan1405

@Ercarret does she need her dupe? I have an awakened 6 star and was halfway through ranking her up when I realised maybe it's better to wait and hopefully pull the 7 star like Dr Zola

Ercarret

She doesn't need her dupe for her damage. However, it gives her combo shields and evades. If you don't get hit, you won't notice that she's unduped. However, one of the reasons for why I ascended my 6* rather than to just hunt for a 7* is that I find her awakened ability very, very powerful. It allows you to simply evade through a lot of really tricky special attacks. That's super useful, especially in Battlegrounds where you don't need to evade a lot of special anyway.

Plus, the combo shields are great as well. If you lose your combo, you lose up to 60% defensive ability accuracy reduction. If you're in your damage phase where you punish defensive abilities every time they fail to trigger, that can really sting.

What I would ask is this: do you play AW enough to be able to open enough Loyalty crystals to have a chance of pulling her within a reasonable timeframe? I personally earn enough Loyalty to maybe open one crystal every three or four months, so my chance of pulling her within the rest of 2023 is spotty at best. If you're in the same situation, then going for the 6* might still be the best option for your right now. If you rack in more Loyalty than I do, however, then you might be able to pull her more quickly than I will.

captain_rogers

Milan1405 said:

@Ercarret does she need her dupe? I have an awakened 6 star and was halfway through ranking her up when I realised maybe it's better to wait and hopefully pull the 7 star like Dr Zola

She's insane in 7*

captain_rogers

Ercarret said:

captain_rogers said:

What is that evade thing?are you referring to her combo meter sig ability? Does it evades all attacks of a special attack? That's awesome.
Btw is there any synergy for black cat worth mentioning?

Yes, her evade is tied to her sig ability. It gives you 9 combo shields that not only protect your combo meter if you were to be struck but also give you a stacking chance to evade. At sig 1, they each give you a 4% chance to evade (for a total of 36% at 9 combo shields) while, at sig 200, they each give you an 11,11% chance (for a total of 99,99% at 9 combo shields). Then, as you lose combo shields by either evading attacks or getting struck, the chance to evade goes down.

You get a flat 1 second of evading. Any attack that can be evaded during that window, can be evaded. (Assuming you're dashing towards the opponent.) However, if a special attack would take 1,5 seconds to complete, you'd eventually get struck (or at least have to block the last portion of it).

It's a really neat ability, kind of similar to Kitty Pryde's ability to phase through attacks or Silk's "I can evade everything!" ability.

As for synergies, I don't typically use any but she has quite a lot of them. The one that sticks out to me is one with Longshot and Domino where she starts the fight with a combo of 40. Since her defensive ability accuracy reduction is (in part) tied to her combo meter, that allows you to start fully ramped up and have 60% DAAR from the go. This can be a really good thing if you're fighting a champion or a node that you can't deal with "eventually", when you've built up your combo meter. Think someone like Electro that damages you with every strike. I also imagine that it would be very useful in AW since you have those power start boosts that allow you to start with 1 bar of power. That way, you'd only be one bar of power away from placing the Sabotage debuff on the opponent and start doing damage, rather than the usual two bars of power and a combo of 30.

Luckily i have both domino nd black cat at 7*. Might r2 black cat after pulling the gem from act 8.3.