The 2024 champ problem

So I’ve seen a lot of discussions surrounding this and I wanted to get a clearer understanding of what Kabam is trying to achieve with some of these champs at this point. I’d also like to preface that not a single 2024 champ balance has been released yet, so this is a look at them before that. 2024 has had some solid releases, but it’s just been such a step down from 2023 that I have to wonder why they decided to just kneecap most new releases

Now first we have the defensive releases (Bullseye, Serpent). We’ve had a lot of champs that were good on defense but mediocre on attack in the past (Korg) and these defenders are good enough to draft in battlegrounds or to place in war regardless of their offensive potential. Overall I’m fine with these champs I guess? They don’t offer much on attack and I’d love to see them get tune ups, but they still have their place.

I have a 7* Ironheart and while she offers some unique utility, she also has mediocre damage output and if I wanted a faster miss counter I’d rather use Kate or anyone else that’s faster and more efficient. Oh look there’s destroyer! He has some nice damage right? If only it didn’t take 10 years to get going, require an sp3, and he doesn’t even destroy half the the buffs in the game so his ramp takes 10 years. He’s good against Hulkling I guess but literally anyone can take him at this point and everyone would rather use him on attack. Punk comes in with some great animations and unique utility only to have the most mid damage payoff ever. He’s grown on me after seeing MsD and Allison’s video, and I think he’d be fantastic if they just let him hit harder.

Silver Sable is a literal meme tier champion. It’s like she was plucked straight from 2016 or something and they just gave her a worse mix of champs that came before her. She doesn’t even have great animations. I don’t want to go in too harshly on Northstar since he’s a new release but I’ve seen a lot of videos from people I trust and I wanted to badly to give him the benefit of the doubt, but my god, what were they trying to accomplish with him? Mediocre utility and that weird quicksilver animation that makes him unfun to use. But hey he’s got good damage right? If you want to ramp him for a long time for mediocre payoff, sure! Sure he isn’t meant for battlegrounds (which is fine) but even if you wanted to use him for Everest content why would you? Ramping him that long for damage that I could get much easier with Aegon or Stryfe or Storm or Kate or Shuri or literally any other endgame based champ that actually sustains a good ramp and has a good amount of utility (also MsD clowning him is pretty funny, I’d go watch his vid)

The same thing applies to Arcade. He’s supposed to be defense based which would be cool if he had all the immunities that we thought he’d have, but I’m not going to judge his defensive potential too much rn. I have seen and heard a lot about his attack potential and to put it plainly, why? He takes a while to get going (times out against literally anything in battlegrounds) and even when he’s ramped he’s hitting like a r3 6*. His utility is fine, but again, why would you reach for arcade? He’s not an onslaught counter. In fact, he barely counters anything the mutant class has to offer at all.

I’ve seen a few people say that Prowler is hands down the best attacker to come from this year, and I’d have to agree. He’s still not perfect and I think his rotation could be a little less tight, but he’s the best we’ve got. Negasonic has skill countering potential which makes her valuable, but again, I’d agree that her damage is lacking. Dust once again has fantastic utility, but she could also use a numbers bump or a slight change to her rotation, though I think she’s fine for general content as is (just not battlegrounds)

I also want to say that I agree that not every champ needs to be OP/made for battlegrounds (cause this comes up all the time) but bumping some numbers to incentivize people to actually reach for them wouldn’t be making them OP. On top of that, we haven’t gotten a single phenomenal attacker for battlegrounds 6 months into the year (once again, Prowler being the best probably but still not phenomenal compared to others).

So yes, not every champ needs to be battlegrounds focused but they’ve missed the mark in general a lot of the time with the damage this year. On top of that, battlegrounds is important and idk why they haven’t even made someone close to 2023 in attack potential. A lot of these champs don’t need much other than an attack bump that lets them reach the same level of a lot of previous releases

Here’s my proposed solution for making these champs great:

Ironheart: Bump her damage up
Dust: Bump her damage up
Destroyer: Make his ramp faster, make him destroy more
Punk: Bump his damage up (slight numbers increase and he’d be sooo good)
Negasonic: Bump her damage up
Sable: Delete her from the game
Arcade: Make his ramp more practical, bump his damage up
Northstar: lmao idk but he needs a lot of help

Comments

PT_99

There's no way Kabam don't tune up Sable, shuri level buff? right? ☹️

Yodabolt21

So you just want to bump damage for all new champs? Got it.

Emilia90

So you just want to bump damage for all new champs? Got it.

Pretty much. Most of them have good utility but damage/rotations for damage that make them impractical and worse than previous years.

Emilia90

There's no way Kabam don't tune up Sable, shuri level buff? right? ☹️

Sable better make the best comeback fr fr. There’s no way that she isn’t massively tuned up

EdisonLaw

Agreed

I think Sable just needs a Shuri style of buff where she can ramp faster, her shocks have added potency and she can refresh or pause them by intercepting or heavy attacks, or something like that.

Ironheart is fine, but I would like her DOT to be refreshed when you launch a special 1

Dust, her damage seems fine but could use some fine tuning

Agreed with Destroyer, he should be able to destroy more buffs, he’s the Destroyer after all.

Arcade, maybe increase the potency of his DOT slightly, and change the bleed to rupture

Negasonic: She pretty much hard counters every skill champ in the game but agreed, her numbers could be higher

Northstar, I am not sure about.

ahmynuts

Whoever designed Sable must HATE the character with a burning passion

Emilia90

Agreed

I think Sable just needs a Shuri style of buff where she can ramp faster, her shocks have added potency and she can refresh or pause them by intercepting or heavy attacks, or something like that.

Ironheart is fine, but I would like her DOT to be refreshed when you launch a special

Dust, her damage seems fine but could use some fine tuning

Agreed with Destroyer, he should be able to destroy more buffs, he’s the Destroyer after all.

Arcade, maybe increase the potency of his DOT slightly, and change the bleed to rupture

Negasonic: She pretty much hard counters every skill champ in the game but agreed, her numbers could be higher

Northstar, I am not sure about.

I’d want Sable to be redone completely honestly. The Shuri style buff would be nice but she she’s so unoriginal and boring compared to the other releases this year

Yeah that’s a good shout on Ironheart. She has a lot of potential

Arcade is an interesting one because even when the opponent has zero immunities, his damage takes forever to get going and he’s mediocre. Add an immunity and he sucks even worse. I think the rupture thing could definitely help and his DoT definitely needs a buff

Chuck_Finley

Good write up. I think there are two underlying problems that aren’t champ specific but these releases reveal them:

1) BG’s is the only mode consistently in play. The Everest and even story content is few and far between. SQ and EQ can be done with any half way decent champ. So BG’s will continue to be the measuring stick since there is no other relevant game consistently available. The quick fix is to add paragon/valiant levels to SQ and EQ so there might be some benefit to a ramp up champ.

2) BG’s - since it is the focal point - continues to be just nuke metas. This month will be no different. So again we will see the same rosters, the same nukes, the same defenders trying to stop nukes. All the while kabam keeps introducing kits that read like a novel that doesn’t surpass CGR’s SP2 on their best day in effectiveness

ItsClobberinTime

What's wild to me is people disagreeing with this lmao do they just go to restaurants and eat whatever they're served? Cause there is absolutely no way in hell anyone with three brains cells goes in with any of these champs in BGs and goes "yep, they're really good, good job Kabam".
I have changed my mind on Prowler though and I do agree, he's the best one this year so far and the only one that is worth running in your deck, so there's that.

Nemesis_17

I love how the solution to almost all of them is just “bump their damage up” lol. That being said I absolutely agree with it, that’s the main problem with almost all the releases. The only releases that are considered good are the ones that are crazy defenders since they don’t need to rely on their damage in bgs, you just plop them on defense.

ItsClobberinTime

So you just want to bump damage for all new champs? Got it.

That's precisely why the vast majority of them are garbage, damage. They're not lacking on the utility department none of them, their damage is just terrible.

captain_rogers

Why y'all hate sable so much? Her playstyle seems unique and cool, she would be a meta relevant champ if she can refesh all her shocks via heavy attack or something. Also she goes crazy with Winter soldier relic.

Obviously she is mid, but I don't think she's meme lmao.

Also it's interesting that every champ becomes better with a damage boost, which proves there isn't anything wrong with the kit itself, but kabam just undertuned them damage-wise for whatever reason. This also means tuning them up is really easy for them.

WinterFields

I think part of the problem is that with how long the game has been going and the number of available champions at this point, it becomes harder and harder to make new champions that are perfectly balanced. If new champions always were meta-defining, old champions will be obsolete way too quickly.

On the other hand, if new champions are too weak, there is no point spending the time or resources to acquire a rank up a new champion. If I have five strong techs, for instance, that cover everything I need, I would never need to focus on others.

What they have been doing lately is adding new mechanics in the game to change things up. Bullseye's killer instinct, Serpent's defense mechanics, Destroyer's destroying buffs, etc. The problem is that with an ever-increasingly complex system, it's more and more of a pain to remember every single mechanic, interactions, and animations.

All that to say, it's a juggling act Kabam has to do each month, and sometimes they nail it and sometimes they don't. I hope with the future rebalancing, that they make some of these new champs more enticing to use without becoming too game breaking

Emilia90

I love how the solution to almost all of them is just “bump their damage up” lol. That being said I absolutely agree with it, that’s the main problem with almost all the releases. The only releases that are considered good are the ones that are crazy defenders since they don’t need to rely on their damage in bgs, you just plop them on defense.

Yeah lmao. 2024 champs actually make me upset when I think of them because the potential is so high and they just drop the ball on the damage. I love the uniqueness in a lot of the kits and I wish they would just let them have some numbers. No one’s asking for the next CGR but cmon, it’s been 6 months and this is the best they can give us

Also just take a look at the rebalances and the difference is night and day. Sinister has great utility and damage, NC is a nuke, and champs like Red Skull are the perfect balance between attacker and defender. That’s only mentioning the recent ones too.

Emilia90

What's wild to me is people disagreeing with this lmao do they just go to restaurants and eat whatever they're served? Cause there is absolutely no way in hell anyone with three brains cells goes in with any of these champs in BGs and goes "yep, they're really good, good job Kabam".
I have changed my mind on Prowler though and I do agree, he's the best one this year so far and the only one that is worth running in your deck, so there's that.

I hope Kabam responds but I’m not banking on it. Even if they do they’ll probably regurgitate something about not every champ needing good damage. Prowler gets bonus points for looking cool too. Would actually love to get him from a Titan which is more than I can say for the rest of the new additions (though I do like Negasonic despite her lacking damage).

Bendy

So I’ve seen a lot of discussions surrounding this and I wanted to get a clearer understanding of what Kabam is trying to achieve with some of these champs at this point. I’d also like to preface that not a single 2024 champ balance has been released yet, so this is a look at them before that. 2024 has had some solid releases, but it’s just been such a step down from 2023 that I have to wonder why they decided to just kneecap most new releases

Now first we have the defensive releases (Bullseye, Serpent). We’ve had a lot of champs that were good on defense but mediocre on attack in the past (Korg) and these defenders are good enough to draft in battlegrounds or to place in war regardless of their offensive potential. Overall I’m fine with these champs I guess? They don’t offer much on attack and I’d love to see them get tune ups, but they still have their place.

I have a 7* Ironheart and while she offers some unique utility, she also has mediocre damage output and if I wanted a faster miss counter I’d rather use Kate or anyone else that’s faster and more efficient. Oh look there’s destroyer! He has some nice damage right? If only it didn’t take 10 years to get going, require an sp3, and he doesn’t even destroy half the the buffs in the game so his ramp takes 10 years. He’s good against Hulkling I guess but literally anyone can take him at this point and everyone would rather use him on attack. Punk comes in with some great animations and unique utility only to have the most mid damage payoff ever. He’s grown on me after seeing MsD and Allison’s video, and I think he’d be fantastic if they just let him hit harder.

Silver Sable is a literal meme tier champion. It’s like she was plucked straight from 2016 or something and they just gave her a worse mix of champs that came before her. She doesn’t even have great animations. I don’t want to go in too harshly on Northstar since he’s a new release but I’ve seen a lot of videos from people I trust and I wanted to badly to give him the benefit of the doubt, but my god, what were they trying to accomplish with him? Mediocre utility and that weird quicksilver animation that makes him unfun to use. But hey he’s got good damage right? If you want to ramp him for a long time for mediocre payoff, sure! Sure he isn’t meant for battlegrounds (which is fine) but even if you wanted to use him for Everest content why would you? Ramping him that long for damage that I could get much easier with Aegon or Stryfe or Storm or Kate or Shuri or literally any other endgame based champ that actually sustains a good ramp and has a good amount of utility (also MsD clowning him is pretty funny, I’d go watch his vid)

The same thing applies to Arcade. He’s supposed to be defense based which would be cool if he had all the immunities that we thought he’d have, but I’m not going to judge his defensive potential too much rn. I have seen and heard a lot about his attack potential and to put it plainly, why? He takes a while to get going (times out against literally anything in battlegrounds) and even when he’s ramped he’s hitting like a r3 6*. His utility is fine, but again, why would you reach for arcade? He’s not an onslaught counter. In fact, he barely counters anything the mutant class has to offer at all.

I’ve seen a few people say that Prowler is hands down the best attacker to come from this year, and I’d have to agree. He’s still not perfect and I think his rotation could be a little less tight, but he’s the best we’ve got. Negasonic has skill countering potential which makes her valuable, but again, I’d agree that her damage is lacking. Dust once again has fantastic utility, but she could also use a numbers bump or a slight change to her rotation, though I think she’s fine for general content as is (just not battlegrounds)

I also want to say that I agree that not every champ needs to be OP/made for battlegrounds (cause this comes up all the time) but bumping some numbers to incentivize people to actually reach for them wouldn’t be making them OP. On top of that, we haven’t gotten a single phenomenal attacker for battlegrounds 6 months into the year (once again, Prowler being the best probably but still not phenomenal compared to others).

So yes, not every champ needs to be battlegrounds focused but they’ve missed the mark in general a lot of the time with the damage this year. On top of that, battlegrounds is important and idk why they haven’t even made someone close to 2023 in attack potential. A lot of these champs don’t need much other than an attack bump that lets them reach the same level of a lot of previous releases

Here’s my proposed solution for making these champs great:

Ironheart: Bump her damage up
Dust: Bump her damage up
Destroyer: Make his ramp faster, make him destroy more
Punk: Bump his damage up (slight numbers increase and he’d be sooo good)
Negasonic: Bump her damage up
Sable: Delete her from the game
Arcade: Make his ramp more practical, bump his damage up
Northstar: lmao idk but he needs a lot of help

I would like to agree but look at lady d rebalance they didnt touch her up and people still asking for a change since awful and well i can see that happen with ironheart which i find is fine how is but id only want higher dots her as thats where her damage will be but u need 50 debuffs to see the difference but how she and sable are like lady d of being dot damaged based i can just see them being not changed or a small tune where it be like shuri only of can refresh the debuffs

Emilia90

Why y'all hate sable so much? Her playstyle seems unique and cool, she would be a meta relevant champ if she can refesh all her shocks via heavy attack or something. Also she goes crazy with Winter soldier relic.

Obviously she is mid, but I don't think she's meme lmao.

Also it's interesting that every champ becomes better with a damage boost, which proves there isn't anything wrong with the kit itself, but kabam just undertuned them damage-wise for whatever reason. This also means tuning them up is really easy for them.

I’m kinda worried that they won’t just tune their damage up. It’s a simple fix but one that’s been ignored in the past. The kits themselves are great, I agree (for the most part anyways) but yeah, the damage is the issue

ItsClobberinTime

What's wild to me is people disagreeing with this lmao do they just go to restaurants and eat whatever they're served? Cause there is absolutely no way in hell anyone with three brains cells goes in with any of these champs in BGs and goes "yep, they're really good, good job Kabam".
I have changed my mind on Prowler though and I do agree, he's the best one this year so far and the only one that is worth running in your deck, so there's that.
I hope Kabam responds but I’m not banking on it. Even if they do they’ll probably regurgitate something about not every champ needing good damage. Prowler gets bonus points for looking cool too. Would actually love to get him from a Titan which is more than I can say for the rest of the new additions (though I do like Negasonic despite her lacking damage).

They probably won't, and if they do they'll probably double down as per usual.

Yeah Prowler is going to be the best in the Titan once Onslaught Bullseye and Red Skull are out. I don't know if I'd want the 7* though cause it seems the 6* sig 200 will be superior. An unawakened Prowler can't take champs like Onslaught and Bishop cause he has to apply that incinerate but I wonder if a sig 200 with the increased crit rating while falter is up can be used well against Onslaught and Bishop without that incinerate, cause if he can he might be top 10 tech for me. He definitely stalls a lot on defense no doubt about that

EdisonLaw

Why y'all hate sable so much? Her playstyle seems unique and cool, she would be a meta relevant champ if she can refesh all her shocks via heavy attack or something. Also she goes crazy with Winter soldier relic.

Obviously she is mid, but I don't think she's meme lmao.

Also it's interesting that every champ becomes better with a damage boost, which proves there isn't anything wrong with the kit itself, but kabam just undertuned them damage-wise for whatever reason. This also means tuning them up is really easy for them.

Maybe they just don’t like the character?

EdisonLaw

I love how the solution to almost all of them is just “bump their damage up” lol. That being said I absolutely agree with it, that’s the main problem with almost all the releases. The only releases that are considered good are the ones that are crazy defenders since they don’t need to rely on their damage in bgs, you just plop them on defense.
Yeah lmao. 2024 champs actually make me upset when I think of them because the potential is so high and they just drop the ball on the damage. I love the uniqueness in a lot of the kits and I wish they would just let them have some numbers. No one’s asking for the next CGR but cmon, it’s been 6 months and this is the best they can give us

Also just take a look at the rebalances and the difference is night and day. Sinister has great utility and damage, NC is a nuke, and champs like Red Skull are the perfect balance between attacker and defender. That’s only mentioning the recent ones too.

This. They have shown that even minor changes can make a champion really good.

EdisonLaw

Good write up. I think there are two underlying problems that aren’t champ specific but these releases reveal them:

1) BG’s is the only mode consistently in play. The Everest and even story content is few and far between. SQ and EQ can be done with any half way decent champ. So BG’s will continue to be the measuring stick since there is no other relevant game consistently available. The quick fix is to add paragon/valiant levels to SQ and EQ so there might be some benefit to a ramp up champ.

2) BG’s - since it is the focal point - continues to be just nuke metas. This month will be no different. So again we will see the same rosters, the same nukes, the same defenders trying to stop nukes. All the while kabam keeps introducing kits that read like a novel that doesn’t surpass CGR’s SP2 on their best day in effectiveness

Alliance war? Raids?

klobberintyme

What's wild to me is people disagreeing with this lmao do they just go to restaurants and eat whatever they're served?

Don't know about you, but when I walk up to the Taco Bell window to pick up my Chalupa supreme cravings box and self-serve drink cup, I know exactly what I've signed my small intestines up for.

ItsClobberinTime

What's wild to me is people disagreeing with this lmao do they just go to restaurants and eat whatever they're served?

Don't know about you, but when I walk up to the Taco Bell window to pick up my Chalupa supreme cravings box and self-serve drink cup, I know exactly what I've signed my small intestines up for.

Well then, who asked for all these champs with garbage damage? Cause all I see is people complaining about them and I agree lol.

peixemacaco

Serpent is an amazing new champ.

No complains about him

EdisonLaw

Serpent is an amazing new champ.

No complains about him

Agreed, he may be the overall best this year

ItsClobberinTime

Serpent is an amazing new champ.

No complains about him
Agreed, he may be the overall best this year

No that would be Prowler, Serpent is op on defense but my God he sucks on attack unless there's a ton of armor

Nemesis_17

Here’s a screenshot of the 2023 releases. I’m gonna point out specifically the good attackers because that’s what’s been missing from the 2024 releases. Why can’t we have champs similar in strength to Wolf? Silk? Kushala? Adam? Shocker? Vox? Cassie? Etc.

I can understand them not wanting to introduce another Kate bishop or absorbing man into the contest, as they would have to become 7* champs and in the titan. But as for the champs I mentioned? A lot of them were in the titan and were considered great pulls, kabam had a great thing going. They found an awesome balance of strong but not broken with the majority of their releases and were applauded for it, which is why this sudden trend change is even more baffling to me.

The only 2024 champs that people have been mainly excited for are defensive based champs, nobody has had damage to be excited about. As others have said, prowler’s damage isn’t bad, it’s not anything ridiculous but it meets the mark and that’s fine. As the owner of a 7* white tiger, I actually think her damage is pretty solid as well, and I’ve seen her do fights in battlegrounds at some good speeds. And while I also don’t think her damage is particularly high, it does also meet the mark imho.

A bit of a yap sesh but yea, offensive releases have been pretty underwhelming so far this year, and it’s confusing to me considering they did such a great job with it last year.

Karatemike415

Not gunna give my opinion on all the Champs listed - just popping in to say that Bullseye is crazy underrated on Attack throughout the majority of the game. For sure, he could be a bit slower on BGs offense against non-science Champs, but his kit interacts with so many different nodes & abilities. One of my favorite attackers at the moment.

Beewee

Serpent is an amazing new champ.

No complains about him

Well umm hmm. They do just not that he is weak

EdisonLaw

Serpent is an amazing new champ.

No complains about him
Agreed, he may be the overall best this year
No that would be Prowler, Serpent is op on defense but my God he sucks on attack unless there's a ton of armor

And unless it’s a long fight