Dust and Ironheart Rebalance

Iron heart got nothing, now I'm worried about Prowler's medium debuff going unchanged and he'll never be able to fight against top mutant defenders

You mean his heavy since he doesn’t inflict damaging effects on mediums. I would like to see it changed to plasma

augustfromcn

Kabam mentioned awhile ago that they are doing 1 buff per saga, so the champion being buffed soon is Superior Iron Man, and probably in a month or so, they might announce who will be buffed during the next saga.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/363592/balance-update-kushala-and-cheelth
This saga buff is kind of a joke. By the time Superior Ironmans buff is finally live, the saga will end a couple weeks later. The buff should launch with the saga so we can actually use them…

Absolutely agree with that

Iron heart got nothing, now I'm worried about Prowler's medium debuff going unchanged and he'll never be able to fight against top mutant defenders

There's no hope for him, And negasonic as well.

Iron heart got nothing, now I'm worried about Prowler's medium debuff going unchanged and he'll never be able to fight against top mutant defenders
There's no hope for him, And negasonic as well.

It’s hilarious to me that Negasonic at max ramp incinerates (r2 7*) does as much damage as Kate with one coldsnap. And her method of refresh is way more annoying too. Negasonic has some good utility and I get some use out of her but her damage is so mid it’s hilarious

PT_99

Iron heart got nothing, now I'm worried about Prowler's medium debuff going unchanged and he'll never be able to fight against top mutant defenders
There's no hope for him, And negasonic as well.

I'm kinda growing on my 7r2 Nega 😅
Might r3 because Kabam don't want to give her damage buff 🙄
But she definitely needs more fire damage because at current pace, she's just a safe war attacker.

ItsClobberinTime

This is weird, you would think they want to sell early access bundles instead of making spending players second guess if its worthy or not.

The problem is the people who buy those early access bundles are whales who couldn't care less about the kits and just spend for the sake of spending, I know cause I have one of them in my alliance lol. He spends on every single new champ and r5 ascends them, he got both Sable and Arcade early access bundles and he r5 ascended Arcade even though he's completely and utterly useless on attack.
As long as so many people are willing to throw away their money on those bundles, they have absolutely nothing to worry about.
Unfortunate but it is what it is, we'll just have to shrug and move on for the rest of the year.

ItsClobberinTime

This is the first time I am hearing that ironheart is performing in defence. I haven't seen anyone complaining facing ironheart in defence. Next what, we get champion who counters ironheart in defence lol.

This seems like kabam didn't wanted to put resource in rebalance and just and wrote a thread as to why we shouldn't tune up ironheart.

If they're in Bronze 3 I definitely see that being possible since I've seen people die to Sunspots down there. The real question here is why are they even taking into account the data from players who are bad at the game? For obvious reasons it is not a good indicator, and Ironheart being left as is, completely undertuned, further proves this.

Harryatomix

I just hope they do something with Serpent, he is certainly an very overtuned defender. I don't know why designers hate overtuned attackers, but give pass to overtuned defender. It should be more than what they did with Bullseye. #NerfSerpent

I just hope they do something with Serpent, he is certainly an very overtuned defender. I don't know why designers hate overtuned attackers, but give pass to overtuned defender. It should be more than what they did with Bullseye. #NerfSerpent

Hes not overtuned hes just annoying since he gains a lot of power that u can only manage if u bring in a mystic but ive had success in wars with sym quite easily with a power boost hes much fairer than bullseye that i doubt he will change

Kabam mentioned awhile ago that they are doing 1 buff per saga, so the champion being buffed soon is Superior Iron Man, and probably in a month or so, they might announce who will be buffed during the next saga.

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/363592/balance-update-kushala-and-cheelth
This saga buff is kind of a joke. By the time Superior Ironmans buff is finally live, the saga will end a couple weeks later. The buff should launch with the saga so we can actually use them…

I think everyone agrees that it should be start if the tactic for the saga is aimed at the saga champ which clarity was which made this kinda stupid of him releasing 2 weeks after war season which is a horrible thing as we only see him for 6 wars if people rank him up

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize

altavista

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I think if they took away Serpent's giant hammer, more people would think he is decent/good on Attack. There is a huge cognitive dissonance to seeing someone attack with an anime-sized giant hammer and do a pitiful amount of damage. In contrast, the feel of Vox's scythe attacks and the damage it does meets expectations.

Tune up on offense and a tune down on defense would be warranted, I think.

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I think if they took away Serpent's giant hammer, more people would think he is decent/good on Attack. There is a huge cognitive dissonance to seeing someone attack with an anime-sized giant hammer and do a pitiful amount of damage. In contrast, the feel of Vox's scythe attacks and the damage it does meets expectations.

Tune up on offense and a tune down on defense would be warranted, I think.

I mean he is definitely great in offense outside bgs. Boy has a lot of utility, one special attack and you can completely bypass miss and evade. He is a ramp up champ so not the best in bgs.

Defensively he is little OP, But I don't want him to get nerfed (I have a r3 7* and pumped all my sigs on him).

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize

I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense

I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail

Awesomep12

My hope is one of the og avengers gets buffed eg captain America, or one of my fave comic champs like vtd.

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense
I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail

That might change with 2 back to back mystics will have to wait and see

SecondSkriller

I predicted that they won’t change anything about these champs, they’ve laid off too many people responsible for this so we get nothing now in terms of rebalance or champion buffs. One buff per saga is LAUGHABLE considering Sagas are lazier than actual diverse monthly events. This Saga had the laziest side quest format possible.

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense
I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail

Atleast serpent have 3 counters, When domino was released ,There wasn't a single hard counter. If I'm not wrong, The first champ who is immune to AAR and don't have any abilities whose chance to trigger is less thN 100% is Mysterio, Who was released like a year after domino. Time god bgs didn't exist at that time.

Serpent is definitely more annoying than other recent defenders, But as I said, as time goes by, Most mystics will start to counter him and he is more manageable.

Also I believe the only thing that makes him too tough in defense in his sig ability. Without the sig, He is not even top 5 defenders imo. So maybe a slight change like his death buff can be nullfied? Or death buff only heals and won't trigger power gain? I won't mind something like this. But they should tune his damage up if they plan to nerf his defenses.

I predicted that they won’t change anything about these champs, they’ve laid off too many people responsible for this so we get nothing now in terms of rebalance or champion buffs. One buff per saga is LAUGHABLE considering Sagas are lazier than actual diverse monthly events. This Saga had the laziest side quest format possible.

Its not about them laying off people if u read the post there data came back they were doing fine simple as that seriously this thing of negativity of people being laid off happens all the times and yet doesnt effect anything

I predicted that they won’t change anything about these champs, they’ve laid off too many people responsible for this so we get nothing now in terms of rebalance or champion buffs. One buff per saga is LAUGHABLE considering Sagas are lazier than actual diverse monthly events. This Saga had the laziest side quest format possible.

I’m upset they didn’t change Ironheart but y’all just be making up stuff. They didn’t lay off the rebalance team and the SQ this month is simple with pretty good rewards. Also one buff per saga is a full overhaul now and not just a tune up

If you have proof that they’ve fired the rebalance team I’d love to see it. But I’m guessing you don’t

Nemesis_17

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense
I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail
Atleast serpent have 3 counters, When domino was released ,There wasn't a single hard counter. If I'm not wrong, The first champ who is immune to AAR and don't have any abilities whose chance to trigger is less thN 100% is Mysterio, Who was released like a year after domino. Time god bgs didn't exist at that time.

Serpent is definitely more annoying than other recent defenders, But as I said, as time goes by, Most mystics will start to counter him and he is more manageable.

Also I believe the only thing that makes him too tough in defense in his sig ability. Without the sig, He is not even top 5 defenders imo. So maybe a slight change like his death buff can be nullfied? Or death buff only heals and won't trigger power gain? I won't mind something like this. But they should tune his damage up if they plan to nerf his defenses.

Tbf Serpent doesn’t have any real “hard counters” either. Neutralize champs should hard counter him but for some reason his death immunity has 125% ability accuracy meaning neutralize still has a 1/4 chance to fail. I won’t deny that there are champs who can take him down well, but there’s nobody I know that truly turns off his abilities and “hard counters” him. Plus, as you said, bgs wasn’t around when domino was released. That’s a big deal. If bgs wasn’t a thing, the only people who’d care about serpent would be high tier aw players, and as a result Serpent’s impact on the contest wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful.

I do also expect counters to be released for him, but that doesn’t change the fact that in the current state of the game he is blatantly overtuned. No other champ is consistently a guaranteed round win 9/10 times, and I’ve seen no other champ consistently trip up top players like serpent has. I’ve seen a lot of mysterium & celestial players perma ban serpent, sometimes even if they have him themselves.

I agree however that the only real broken part of his kit is his death immunity, he’s quite manageable without it, but with it you are almost guaranteed to just eat an sp3. Fortunately, serpent has a mechanic that makes it very simple to tune him down, and that is his dread charges. Simply put, for each dread charge serpent has he gains some attack rating, reduces opponent’s crit penetration, but mainly, gains power & health in his death immunity for each dread charge he has. On defense he start with 3 dread, and on attack he starts with 1 and gains 1 for every fight won.

My proposed changes would be to:

1: have him on defense start with 2 dread instead of 3, essentially reducing his power and health gain from his death immunity by 33%.

2: change the 125% base ability accuracy on his death immunity to 100%, just so neutralize is actually a consistent way to counter him.

I just find it so infuriatingly stupid that you can bring in a hard countering mechanic from a champ with class advantage and yet he still has a 25% chance to just give you the finger and trigger it anyway. I would personally love for him to get a small tune up on attack to balance these changes but I don’t know if they will since his target damage is a 2.5. Maybe let him start with more culforce charges on attack to ramp quicker in bgs, I’d be all for that.

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense
I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail
Atleast serpent have 3 counters, When domino was released ,There wasn't a single hard counter. If I'm not wrong, The first champ who is immune to AAR and don't have any abilities whose chance to trigger is less thN 100% is Mysterio, Who was released like a year after domino. Time god bgs didn't exist at that time.

Serpent is definitely more annoying than other recent defenders, But as I said, as time goes by, Most mystics will start to counter him and he is more manageable.

Also I believe the only thing that makes him too tough in defense in his sig ability. Without the sig, He is not even top 5 defenders imo. So maybe a slight change like his death buff can be nullfied? Or death buff only heals and won't trigger power gain? I won't mind something like this. But they should tune his damage up if they plan to nerf his defenses.
Tbf Serpent doesn’t have any real “hard counters” either. Neutralize champs should hard counter him but for some reason his death immunity has 125% ability accuracy meaning neutralize still has a 1/4 chance to fail. I won’t deny that there are champs who can take him down well, but there’s nobody I know that truly turns off his abilities and “hard counters” him. Plus, as you said, bgs wasn’t around when domino was released. That’s a big deal. If bgs wasn’t a thing, the only people who’d care about serpent would be high tier aw players, and as a result Serpent’s impact on the contest wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful.

I do also expect counters to be released for him, but that doesn’t change the fact that in the current state of the game he is blatantly overtuned. No other champ is consistently a guaranteed round win 9/10 times, and I’ve seen no other champ consistently trip up top players like serpent has. I’ve seen a lot of mysterium & celestial players perma ban serpent, sometimes even if they have him themselves.

I agree however that the only real broken part of his kit is his death immunity, he’s quite manageable without it, but with it you are almost guaranteed to just eat an sp3. Fortunately, serpent has a mechanic that makes it very simple to tune him down, and that is his dread charges. Simply put, for each dread charge serpent has he gains some attack rating, reduces opponent’s crit penetration, but mainly, gains power & health in his death immunity for each dread charge he has. On defense he start with 3 dread, and on attack he starts with 1 and gains 1 for every fight won.

My proposed changes would be to:

1: have him on defense start with 2 dread instead of 3, essentially reducing his power and health gain from his death immunity by 33%.

2: change the 125% base ability accuracy on his death immunity to 100%, just so neutralize is actually a consistent way to counter him.

I just find it so infuriatingly stupid that you can bring in a hard countering mechanic from a champ with class advantage and yet he still has a 25% chance to just give you the finger and trigger it anyway. I would personally love for him to get a small tune up on attack to balance these changes but I don’t know if they will since his target damage is a 2.5. Maybe let him start with more culforce charges on attack to ramp quicker in bgs, I’d be all for that.

There’s absolutely no way their data shows that serpent is fair and balanced. I would be willing to call bs on that 100% based on what I’ve seen from top level players and I’m sure the case would be worse for the lower tiers. Onslaught and Bullseye were annoying but had lots of options to go for and now they’re manageable. I don’t think serpent will ever be fully manageable in his current state without a hard counter. It’s so funny that he has an ability to counter anything that you think of. Everytime I’m like “oh what if you tried this” he has something in his abilities to prevent it

BigBlueOx

After the insanely awesome 2023 group of Champs, I’m just shocked that the design goals for 2024 seem so focused on mid-tier underwhelming champs with the exception of defenders… most of whom are wanted for their “fun” interactions that inspire rage rather than enjoyment

Nemesis_17

I will be furious if they touch serpent. He is decent at best at attack, So he needs all his defensive prowesses.

I get it but I can’t rationalize leaving serpent as is on defense. His kill rate on defense is close to a 100% from what I’ve seen from other big players and my own experience. It’s not like bullseye where he trips people up, but there’s a lot of counters and I’ve also seen like 30 second takedowns of him with a few champs

I’m a huge DLL fan but Serpent is just such a mindblowingly stupid champ. Can’t dex when he has true focus, guaranteed block damage, immune to every power control other than steal I believe, damage reduction, power control reduction, long special attacks that make him further stall, insane power gain, cheat death, regen. Like who approved this? The more I think about him, the more frustrated I get

Instant burst reduction means you can’t really use hood or Ham effectively here, most power controllers are useless, most general champs are too slow or completely useless, and mystics are still unreliable or stalled. I think Chavez and Kush are his best counters and even they can be cooked by serpent because he’s just so annoying. Even if you play perfectly you get a guaranteed 7 second stall at the end and he can also fail neutralize
I mean, We had the same sentiment when photon, onslaught and bullseye were released and now they all were "fair". Give a few months and every new mystic champ will start to hard counter serpent.

Also We haven't had any mystic champ since serpent release, that's why he have limited counters. I rather see more champs countering him instead of nerfing him.

I'm a little biased here tho as I ranked him up solely for defense
I don’t think it’s the same thing though. Photon already had hard counters before she was out and despite turning off masteries, there’s ways to manage her and she isn’t immune to everything that exists. Same thing goes for onslaught and bullseye. While photon could already be nuked by CB, Mantis, Shang, Zemo, KP, and a few others by her time of release (and managed well and taken out by others like Hulkling and Starky with full health) there’s no hard serpent counters that even exist yet. Even his best counters aren’t the fastest of most reliable

I think people just needed to learn to dex onslaught and he can be nuked by anyone and bullseye is a frail dude despite being annoying to deal with so any bleed immune with good damage takes him well. I agree though, we haven’t had a single mystic and I’m willing to bet that Enchantress if she’s coming and Shathra will be hard serpent counters lmao. We’ll see though. From my experience figuring all the tough defenders, there’s nothing more limiting and punishing than serpent by miles. Like it’s a guaranteed loss unless you draft like 3 specific champs and even they can fail
Atleast serpent have 3 counters, When domino was released ,There wasn't a single hard counter. If I'm not wrong, The first champ who is immune to AAR and don't have any abilities whose chance to trigger is less thN 100% is Mysterio, Who was released like a year after domino. Time god bgs didn't exist at that time.

Serpent is definitely more annoying than other recent defenders, But as I said, as time goes by, Most mystics will start to counter him and he is more manageable.

Also I believe the only thing that makes him too tough in defense in his sig ability. Without the sig, He is not even top 5 defenders imo. So maybe a slight change like his death buff can be nullfied? Or death buff only heals and won't trigger power gain? I won't mind something like this. But they should tune his damage up if they plan to nerf his defenses.
Tbf Serpent doesn’t have any real “hard counters” either. Neutralize champs should hard counter him but for some reason his death immunity has 125% ability accuracy meaning neutralize still has a 1/4 chance to fail. I won’t deny that there are champs who can take him down well, but there’s nobody I know that truly turns off his abilities and “hard counters” him. Plus, as you said, bgs wasn’t around when domino was released. That’s a big deal. If bgs wasn’t a thing, the only people who’d care about serpent would be high tier aw players, and as a result Serpent’s impact on the contest wouldn’t have been nearly as impactful.

I do also expect counters to be released for him, but that doesn’t change the fact that in the current state of the game he is blatantly overtuned. No other champ is consistently a guaranteed round win 9/10 times, and I’ve seen no other champ consistently trip up top players like serpent has. I’ve seen a lot of mysterium & celestial players perma ban serpent, sometimes even if they have him themselves.

I agree however that the only real broken part of his kit is his death immunity, he’s quite manageable without it, but with it you are almost guaranteed to just eat an sp3. Fortunately, serpent has a mechanic that makes it very simple to tune him down, and that is his dread charges. Simply put, for each dread charge serpent has he gains some attack rating, reduces opponent’s crit penetration, but mainly, gains power & health in his death immunity for each dread charge he has. On defense he start with 3 dread, and on attack he starts with 1 and gains 1 for every fight won.

My proposed changes would be to:

1: have him on defense start with 2 dread instead of 3, essentially reducing his power and health gain from his death immunity by 33%.

2: change the 125% base ability accuracy on his death immunity to 100%, just so neutralize is actually a consistent way to counter him.

I just find it so infuriatingly stupid that you can bring in a hard countering mechanic from a champ with class advantage and yet he still has a 25% chance to just give you the finger and trigger it anyway. I would personally love for him to get a small tune up on attack to balance these changes but I don’t know if they will since his target damage is a 2.5. Maybe let him start with more culforce charges on attack to ramp quicker in bgs, I’d be all for that.
There’s absolutely no way their data shows that serpent is fair and balanced. I would be willing to call bs on that 100% based on what I’ve seen from top level players and I’m sure the case would be worse for the lower tiers. Onslaught and Bullseye were annoying but had lots of options to go for and now they’re manageable. I don’t think serpent will ever be fully manageable in his current state without a hard counter. It’s so funny that he has an ability to counter anything that you think of. Everytime I’m like “oh what if you tried this” he has something in his abilities to prevent it

Oh absolutely. As you said his winrate is already ridiculously high at top tiers that I can’t imagine how the average cav or tb feels. Kabam seems to forget that 5/5 defenders who are tuned to be difficult for top players are almost unreasonable for the majority of the playerbase, and serpent goes even further than that. Then additionally because serpent has so many mechanics going on it seems like every other meta juices him up in some form making him even worse.

And yea he’s far worse than bullseye or onslaught. I despise the way bullseye is designed, but at least he’s not a guaranteed win from the moment you draft him. If they get caught without a counter then yea he basically is, but bullseye has like 5x the amount of counters serpent does. If they don’t nerf him at all im interested in seeing how bs their explanation for not doing so is.

DocWest

A day later and I’m still blown away that the balance update took so long to come out and when it finally dropped, everything is fine and no changes lol.

We have so many strong defenders this year and all the new attackers are just OK at best. I had hoped some of the attack oriented new champs would get a tune up to make them be more useful in popular modes like BGs. Because it’s honestly getting stale when everyone uses the same attackers for everything because using some more unique champs makes you lose on time.

My hope is one of the og avengers gets buffed eg captain America, or one of my fave comic champs like vtd.

With how powerful the science class is, I don't think Cap will get buffed so soon

After the insanely awesome 2023 group of Champs, I’m just shocked that the design goals for 2024 seem so focused on mid-tier underwhelming champs with the exception of defenders… most of whom are wanted for their “fun” interactions that inspire rage rather than enjoyment

Even this year's buffs are so far better than the champs themselves