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How would you nerf serpent?

Emilia90Emilia90 Member Posts: 3,392 ★★★★★
So this is the month where they hopefully reveal that serpent will be getting a decent tune down on defense. I’ve fought him as a r5A all the way to a high sig r3 and it’s pretty apparent to most players that he’s way too overtuned and that he needs a decent defensive nerf

Now I’m not expecting them to turn him into a potato and I know it’s not happening since he’s supposed to be a hard defender, but even then, I have some ideas to tune him down within the realm of possibility that hopefully get implemented

For reference, there are only about 5-7 champs that would be able to take him out in a decent time in bg and everyone else is either fully useless or gets stalled way too much. Bullseye is annoying but he’s frail and doesn’t have res to everything (and any bleed immune with good damage can nuke him). Serpent on the other hand limits you to a few options that are still suboptimal at times since he has so much going on and even the good champs can’t prevent his death immunity which prolongs the fight by 8 seconds no matter what

To start with what makes serpent so hard (for anyone who’s not fully aware):
- Immune to fate seal, most forms of power control, ability power rate can’t be lowered past a certain point, heal block immunity
- Massive amounts of power gain and inexorable to stop champs like Tigra
- 125% AA means your neutralize can fail and that he can still gain all the stupid effects from his sig ability
- Your crit penetration and burst damage are lowered so much that you’ll barely be making a dent in him with champs who are dependent on either, massive energy res
- Turns off dex when he has true focus
- Causes evade and miss to fail
- Pierce coupled with a ton of block damage since he has power gain and you can’t dex

As if all of that wasn’t enough, his sig ability gives him even more broken abilities
- Turns off stun during specials (no Hulk)
- 8 guaranteed seconds of death immunity with massive power gain that’ll give him an sp3 and decent regen. Since you can’t even fully prevent this with neutralize, you’re essentially cooked regardless of what you do (either a mass time stall or eating an sp3)

Looking at this extensive list of really annoying abilities, I know a few definitely won’t be touched but there are a few that could be implemented to make him more fair while still being hard

- Reduce his burst reduction and crit resistance or get rid of it entirely. This gets rid of so many more options like Ham, lowers Tigra’s effectiveness, makes hood worse, etc. the crit thing makes any crit dealer way less effective. Take it away or lower it
- His AA should not be this high. Tune it down to 100% so there are reliable options and the limited neutralize champs should be better than they are now
- Tune the sig ability down. Guaranteed sp3 with heal and 8 seconds of stalling unless you get lucky with neutralize? Way too broken
- Remove pierce

Anyway these are my suggestions and I’m sure others will have more. Best to keep them realistic but I think these will make him way less hard at least and open up more options. Very fun to play offensively though (that’s the only bit of credit he gets)
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Comments

  • PolygonPolygon Member Posts: 4,405 ★★★★★

    Polygon said:

    Yeah if they were to nerf it would be messy as there would have to be rank down tickets as many have taken theres to r3 or used sig stones etc. Id rather they focus on buffs like Negasonic

    Yeah except they really don't have to...
    Except for the fact that people spent real world currency on July sales for unit bundles to be able to obtain that Titan Nexus or other Titans in milestones etc. Would be a lot of uproar from the community. Which is why its better to not have the broken tier defenders come out the way they do in the first place or have some kind of Quality Control to prevent it from getting out
  • BringPopcornBringPopcorn Member Posts: 4,684 ★★★★★
    Polygon said:

    Polygon said:

    Yeah if they were to nerf it would be messy as there would have to be rank down tickets as many have taken theres to r3 or used sig stones etc. Id rather they focus on buffs like Negasonic

    Yeah except they really don't have to...
    Except for the fact that people spent real world currency on July sales for unit bundles to be able to obtain that Titan Nexus or other Titans in milestones etc. Would be a lot of uproar from the community. Which is why its better to not have the broken tier defenders come out the way they do in the first place or have some kind of Quality Control to prevent it from getting out
    I edited my previous comment to give a little more input. People know that new champs are subject to review and balancing. And those people spent knowing this...
    There is an uproar over anything, why would this be any different?
  • Nemesis_17Nemesis_17 Member Posts: 2,258 ★★★★★

    Wow people are really disagreeing with this... Since when did these forums become this unhinged? Lmao overhyping mid champs and advocating for them with the typical "not every champ has to be good for BGs, they'll be great for AW!" (breaking news: you can use Blue Cyclops in AW if you want to cause of boosts and synergies) but then also advocating for op defenders (who 100% need to be tuned down for the game's health).

    I can’t speak for everyone so I won’t say that everyone who disagrees falls into this category. But from what I’ve seen it seems like a lot of the people who advocate against a nerf are those who have him as one of their top champs. The people I know in game who want him to stay the same are either valiants with him at r3, or newer to middle level paragons who have him as one of their first r5a. Almost everyone else I talk to is on the nerf side.

    If you hear opinions from celestial players, the grand majority of them think he needs a nerf unquestionably. The only one I’ve heard against the nerf is Andy who owns a duped r3 lmao. Lagacy, Nagase, trappy, and probably others all agree he’s overtuned. From an objective standpoint of how he performs in that data he is wayyyyyy too much.
  • Wicket329Wicket329 Member Posts: 3,341 ★★★★★
    For what it’s worth, Sym Supreme shreds him. I just used my r4 unascended 6* against an r3 7* AW boss and it was comical. I think most stagger-based mystics will do well against him.

    Chavez is another great counter, as she can shut down his power gain and all those buffs on him just give her more damage.

    Doom works, but Serpent’s sig does mess with the cycle since the sp3 stun won’t apply. Still doable with sp1/sp2 spam, but slow.

    I don’t have a Kushala yet to confirm this, but I understand she can put in work.

    I think there are more counters to Serpent than people typically think of, but if a tune down were necessary I think it would be in the unavoidable damage department. Make it so that only his projectiles can’t be dexed, rather than the entire special. Getting clipped by the edge of a melee feels bad
  • Nemesis_17Nemesis_17 Member Posts: 2,258 ★★★★★
    Wicket329 said:

    For what it’s worth, Sym Supreme shreds him. I just used my r4 unascended 6* against an r3 7* AW boss and it was comical. I think most stagger-based mystics will do well against him.

    Chavez is another great counter, as she can shut down his power gain and all those buffs on him just give her more damage.

    Doom works, but Serpent’s sig does mess with the cycle since the sp3 stun won’t apply. Still doable with sp1/sp2 spam, but slow.

    I don’t have a Kushala yet to confirm this, but I understand she can put in work.

    I think there are more counters to Serpent than people typically think of, but if a tune down were necessary I think it would be in the unavoidable damage department. Make it so that only his projectiles can’t be dexed, rather than the entire special. Getting clipped by the edge of a melee feels bad

    Earlier today I looked through every champ on aunt mai and counted how many counters he had. I counted 12 in total, 10 who are mystic. However there were only about 7 who were actually meta usable.

    Comparatively, I counted all the counters for bullseye, and came out with 19. 13 were mutant, and iirc 17 of them were what I considered meta usable. That’s a fairly big difference, and it’s not like serpent is manageable without a counter, you just lose if you don’t get one. Bullseye is the same way, but he has essentially double the counters, and he isn’t tanky so he can actually be nuked, whereas serpent even with a perfect counter is rarely going down under 50s
  • Emilia90Emilia90 Member Posts: 3,392 ★★★★★
    Wicket329 said:

    For what it’s worth, Sym Supreme shreds him. I just used my r4 unascended 6* against an r3 7* AW boss and it was comical. I think most stagger-based mystics will do well against him.

    Chavez is another great counter, as she can shut down his power gain and all those buffs on him just give her more damage.

    Doom works, but Serpent’s sig does mess with the cycle since the sp3 stun won’t apply. Still doable with sp1/sp2 spam, but slow.

    I don’t have a Kushala yet to confirm this, but I understand she can put in work.

    I think there are more counters to Serpent than people typically think of, but if a tune down were necessary I think it would be in the unavoidable damage department. Make it so that only his projectiles can’t be dexed, rather than the entire special. Getting clipped by the edge of a melee feels bad

    There are a few but my issue is that he has so much going on and the death immunity at the end is a guaranteed time stall for even the best attackers. Serpent is practically a guaranteed win since every other defender that exists currently can be nuked and doesn’t give you nearly as much block damage and everything else. Chavez and Kushala work well but it still takes forever against a r3 and he can still do you dirty unless you get very lucky with the AI cooperating (and even then he still stalls for a very very long time).
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,845 ★★★★★
    Polygon said:

    Yeah if they were to nerf it would be messy as there would have to be rank down tickets as many have taken theres to r3 or used sig stones etc. Id rather they focus on buffs like Negasonic

    The balance program is clearly there to bypass having to give RDTs. I can't fathom why people still think they'll give these for champions in the balance program.
  • DemonzfyreDemonzfyre Member Posts: 21,845 ★★★★★
    Wicket329 said:

    For what it’s worth, Sym Supreme shreds him. I just used my r4 unascended 6* against an r3 7* AW boss and it was comical. I think most stagger-based mystics will do well against him.

    Chavez is another great counter, as she can shut down his power gain and all those buffs on him just give her more damage.

    Doom works, but Serpent’s sig does mess with the cycle since the sp3 stun won’t apply. Still doable with sp1/sp2 spam, but slow.

    I don’t have a Kushala yet to confirm this, but I understand she can put in work.

    I think there are more counters to Serpent than people typically think of, but if a tune down were necessary I think it would be in the unavoidable damage department. Make it so that only his projectiles can’t be dexed, rather than the entire special. Getting clipped by the edge of a melee feels bad

    Can confirm she's great against him.
  • EdisonLawEdisonLaw Member Posts: 6,522 ★★★★★
    edited August 6
    Reduce the amount of Dread he starts on defense to two instead, and let him start with 3 dread on attack in Battlegrounds. This will make him a slightly easier defender as his immortality won’t last as long and his fury is not as potent as well as his other abilities won’t be as potent, and starting with 3 dread on attack makes him a better attacker. Besides this he doesn’t need many changes
  • NightheartNightheart Member Posts: 2,083 ★★★★
    The issue is if he gets nerfed won't it affect his offensive capabilities? Because this is quite a slippery slope. A tune up on attack and reduction un defense would be fair game.
  • EdisonLawEdisonLaw Member Posts: 6,522 ★★★★★
    Wicket329 said:

    For what it’s worth, Sym Supreme shreds him. I just used my r4 unascended 6* against an r3 7* AW boss and it was comical. I think most stagger-based mystics will do well against him.

    Chavez is another great counter, as she can shut down his power gain and all those buffs on him just give her more damage.

    Doom works, but Serpent’s sig does mess with the cycle since the sp3 stun won’t apply. Still doable with sp1/sp2 spam, but slow.

    I don’t have a Kushala yet to confirm this, but I understand she can put in work.

    I think there are more counters to Serpent than people typically think of, but if a tune down were necessary I think it would be in the unavoidable damage department. Make it so that only his projectiles can’t be dexed, rather than the entire special. Getting clipped by the edge of a melee feels bad

    Yeah I get clipped all the time, especially when I dash in and he throws a special I cannot avoid because dexterity is disabled
  • NightheartNightheart Member Posts: 2,083 ★★★★
    Honestly tho I haven't ranked up my Serpent because he is quite likely to get rebalanced
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