Proposed Gladiator Rebalance Suggestions
HassamaMama
Member Posts: 273 ★★★
Now that it's confirmed, I'd love for a dev to take a look at these rebalance suggestions based on their post:
"The goal of this rebalance is to increase his damage floor with an easier and more consistent ramp, and allow him to live at his damage ceiling longer once he is ramped."
1. Increase Confidence Buff potency to 4% or better yet 5%. With Cosmic characters like Hercules, Hulkling, CGR, Galan, and Adam Warlock who ALL increase their Attack Rating by immense amounts, having a total of over +150% Attack when at 30+ Confidence Buffs is not a hard ask. This is what the potency SHOULD be. I’d settle for the 4% potency (+144% Attack at the current max Confidence Buff stack of 36), but would prefer the 5% (+180% Attack at the current max Confidence Buff stack of 36).
2. Increase the normal Confidence Buff stack limit to 28 without throwing an SP3/using the persistent charge Signature Ability. This will make it so that maintaining Ultra Confidence is actually feasible when unawakened/in the first fight if awakened. The idea of being able to do the physical burst damage and utilize the Unstoppable from the sp1 to dash into the opponent’s specials is SO cool - don’t let it drop off and mean nothing. Simply adding 4 more to the normal stack limit will allow an acceptable upkeep without having to rely on throwing an sp3 or being awakened/high sig - those two actions/increases will instead just enhance him even further. This could also mean an increase in maximum Confidence buff stack to 40, even further increasing his damage ceiling (+160% at 40 Confidence buffs for 4% potency, +200% at 40 Confidence buffs for 5% potency, as discussed in first point above).
3. Faster Ramp Suggestion - after each victory, Gladiator adds 4 Confidence to his persistent charges, increasing his strength at the start of every fight after winning. I get the desire for this, too - one suggestion could be this simple passive ability in his base kit, rather than relying on him being awakened to ramp up more easily.
4. When at Ultra Confidence (24+ Confidence) and attacking, the Confidence Buffs do not decrease when Unstoppable and hit by the defender. They should only fall off when you dash back AND only after 1 second of not actively attacking the defender. Think of this like the timing for Adam Warlock's buffs - not impossible to upkeep, but demands skill/confidence (lol). Justification for this could be "hesitating questions your own Confidence, reducing your damage potential."
5. Resistance to DOT, scaling with the Confidence Buff count - personally, I think ALL types of DOTs, but I’ll settle for Poison, Bleed, Rupture, Coldsnap, Incinerate, and Shock since all those make sense with regards to the comic book lore. Gladiator should be a tank when ramped up. The way I think this should work is in two different possibilities:
A. Standard 2% or 3% resistance per Confidence Buff (so at 36 or 40 Confidence Buffs he’ll have 72% or 80% to more than full resistance to the DOTs listed, or just all DOTs, which makes sense since he has an accelerated healing factor as well as invulnerability in the comics) OR
B. At every 12 stacks of Confidence Buffs (which results in Super Confidence or Ultra Confidence or beyond), gain 25%, 30%, or 35% resistance to the DOTS listed or all DOTs, resulting in a maximum of 75%, 90%, or more than full resistance to the DOTs listed after hitting each Confidence stage.
This makes sense, comic book lore-wise, and would be an acceptable mechanic in my opinion. This would also result in a pseudo-invulnerability mimicking what he has in the comics since he won’t die to DOTs, which we are seeing with Morbius (so go ahead, try and say that’s too OP).
6. Stun Immunity - with Hercules, Nick Fury, Valkyrie, and others, let’s just make him fully, passively Stun Immune upon reaching Ultra Confidence (>24 Confidence Buffs) and while attacking the defender. Simple change. The Stun Immunity he has right now is borderline useless. Allow it to have the same limitation as point #4 - once the buffs start falling off, no longer Stun immune.
I believe everything above addresses the desired rebalance the devs have stated in their post, as well as adds the utility Gladiator is missing to keep him at his maximum power level, yet still with appropriate limitations. Hopefully the devs see this! Thanks to all who read.
"The goal of this rebalance is to increase his damage floor with an easier and more consistent ramp, and allow him to live at his damage ceiling longer once he is ramped."
1. Increase Confidence Buff potency to 4% or better yet 5%. With Cosmic characters like Hercules, Hulkling, CGR, Galan, and Adam Warlock who ALL increase their Attack Rating by immense amounts, having a total of over +150% Attack when at 30+ Confidence Buffs is not a hard ask. This is what the potency SHOULD be. I’d settle for the 4% potency (+144% Attack at the current max Confidence Buff stack of 36), but would prefer the 5% (+180% Attack at the current max Confidence Buff stack of 36).
2. Increase the normal Confidence Buff stack limit to 28 without throwing an SP3/using the persistent charge Signature Ability. This will make it so that maintaining Ultra Confidence is actually feasible when unawakened/in the first fight if awakened. The idea of being able to do the physical burst damage and utilize the Unstoppable from the sp1 to dash into the opponent’s specials is SO cool - don’t let it drop off and mean nothing. Simply adding 4 more to the normal stack limit will allow an acceptable upkeep without having to rely on throwing an sp3 or being awakened/high sig - those two actions/increases will instead just enhance him even further. This could also mean an increase in maximum Confidence buff stack to 40, even further increasing his damage ceiling (+160% at 40 Confidence buffs for 4% potency, +200% at 40 Confidence buffs for 5% potency, as discussed in first point above).
3. Faster Ramp Suggestion - after each victory, Gladiator adds 4 Confidence to his persistent charges, increasing his strength at the start of every fight after winning. I get the desire for this, too - one suggestion could be this simple passive ability in his base kit, rather than relying on him being awakened to ramp up more easily.
4. When at Ultra Confidence (24+ Confidence) and attacking, the Confidence Buffs do not decrease when Unstoppable and hit by the defender. They should only fall off when you dash back AND only after 1 second of not actively attacking the defender. Think of this like the timing for Adam Warlock's buffs - not impossible to upkeep, but demands skill/confidence (lol). Justification for this could be "hesitating questions your own Confidence, reducing your damage potential."
5. Resistance to DOT, scaling with the Confidence Buff count - personally, I think ALL types of DOTs, but I’ll settle for Poison, Bleed, Rupture, Coldsnap, Incinerate, and Shock since all those make sense with regards to the comic book lore. Gladiator should be a tank when ramped up. The way I think this should work is in two different possibilities:
A. Standard 2% or 3% resistance per Confidence Buff (so at 36 or 40 Confidence Buffs he’ll have 72% or 80% to more than full resistance to the DOTs listed, or just all DOTs, which makes sense since he has an accelerated healing factor as well as invulnerability in the comics) OR
B. At every 12 stacks of Confidence Buffs (which results in Super Confidence or Ultra Confidence or beyond), gain 25%, 30%, or 35% resistance to the DOTS listed or all DOTs, resulting in a maximum of 75%, 90%, or more than full resistance to the DOTs listed after hitting each Confidence stage.
This makes sense, comic book lore-wise, and would be an acceptable mechanic in my opinion. This would also result in a pseudo-invulnerability mimicking what he has in the comics since he won’t die to DOTs, which we are seeing with Morbius (so go ahead, try and say that’s too OP).
6. Stun Immunity - with Hercules, Nick Fury, Valkyrie, and others, let’s just make him fully, passively Stun Immune upon reaching Ultra Confidence (>24 Confidence Buffs) and while attacking the defender. Simple change. The Stun Immunity he has right now is borderline useless. Allow it to have the same limitation as point #4 - once the buffs start falling off, no longer Stun immune.
I believe everything above addresses the desired rebalance the devs have stated in their post, as well as adds the utility Gladiator is missing to keep him at his maximum power level, yet still with appropriate limitations. Hopefully the devs see this! Thanks to all who read.
6
Comments
Persistent buff - 3-4 per fight.
That dot resistance is not needed, galan has no immunities but he is still solid, similarly gladiator can be a more offensive champ.
Gladiator is immune to all effects of stun against non mystic champs. Every time a stun is prevented, lose x confidence buffs.
Each confidence buffs reduce opponents power drain and other manipulating abilities by 6%, upto 90%. The amount of power drain and suppression effects prevented by this ability is reflected back to attacker. (Let's say opponent drain 10% of your max power while you max resistance, so 90% of 10 is 9, so 9% of opponent power and 1% of your power is drained instead.)
Maybe make this a sig ability that scales with sig stones, a good piece of utility.
I do acknowledge how Doom also has a 1 hit heavy, but he can heavy cancel because of easy access to unblockable specials.. So Doom can choose to let the heavy hit and immediately use his unblockable special (which have the benefit of being far reaching projectiles), or heavy cancel into the special. To the latter point, even if you mistime your special and the defender can block it, your special is usually unblockable so it doesn't matter. In contrast, since Gladiator only has unblockable after letting the heavy hit, when heavy canceling you can mistime your special and just have it be blocked (especially since Gladiator's specials don't necessarily have a completely horizontal reach).
I realize that heavy canceling is not Gladiator's playstyle, but it is something that adds friction to playing him since heavy canceling has been so ingrained in me (especially after using America Chavez so much).