Exactly — a mechanic as busted as this version of Death Immunity isn’t something players should be praying they pull from a crystal to address. It should be addressed at the game level.
There’s no way anyone can tell me that Serpent is ruined if Stagger OR Nullify had a fixed percentage to Proc on Death Immunty that was fair, or Fate Seal had a fixed percentage to Proc on Special Activation by the Attacker.
See? I am not whining for everything that is difficult about the kit to be removed.
Death Immunity is simply busted as it is and needs to be addressed at the game level with established game mechanics and class traits able to be used
The way Death immunity is would be tolerable on its own (we don't have a problem with that same middle finger that Galan or other champions tell Mystics with nullify immunity), but then Serpent has a ton of other mechanics that throw middle fingers at other classes ("Good luck controlling my power, non-Mystics"), which makes it end up feeling extremely unfair.
Oh, in addition to the middle finger to most of the Mystic class, he'll also say a slur to the other Mystic champions by telling them their Neutralize will fail some of the time.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
it's been said that kabam intends on stretching this game out another 10 years and judging by how cautious they're being with some things like rank up materials and last year's banquet, you can tell that they're serious.
i hate fighting serp and bullseye (that's right, i'm a scrub!) in BGs and serpent is currently a terrible design but we have no idea what's in the works at kabam with character, kit, and class development. maybe we should give it a chance before busting out our phony baloney threats.
I've literally never turned off a Vega video before his serpent one. As soon as he said there was misinformation being spread with the implication that he was referring to Lagacy. I was gone. He lost me
Or maybe KT1 video as well Both of these legends went nuts for all the right reasons
Have always respected KT as he has no interest in being in the “group” but Lags choice to always tell it as it is despite his affiliations is why he’s now my second favorite MCOC content creator.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
Kabam ignoring community feedback makes them come off as arrogant if anything, especially when the response is utter silence. Kabam is very knowledgeable of their own game I’m sure, but there are a lot of smart players in the community with opinions worth taking into consideration. It’s also pretty telling when the community is mostly unified on a topic. For specifics from the polls I’ve seen made it seems to be between a 75-25 and 80-20 ration of nerf to not nerf. Gotta keep in mind there’s players advocating for him to stay the same out of purely subjective reasons such as them owning a high rank serpent.
They gave no explanation as to why they found him fair, and no proof of their claims about him being “healthy” being true. We’re basically just being ignored.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
Yes but in this case cosmic beats everyone, there isn't a single champ from any class that can handle Serpent in BGs the same way you can take Bullseye with Starky, Photon with Hulkling or Onslaught with Juggs. Anyone denying this and saying it isn't busted is just not being real with themselves.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
it's been said that kabam intends on stretching this game out another 10 years and judging by how cautious they're being with some things like rank up materials and last year's banquet, you can tell that they're serious.
i hate fighting serp and bullseye (that's right, i'm a scrub!) in BGs and serpent is currently a terrible design but we have no idea what's in the works at kabam with character, kit, and class development. maybe we should give it a chance before busting out our phony baloney threats.
Maybe if DLL hadn't said that there will be no such thing as hard counters that completely shut off defenders, people wouldn't be as worried as they are.
Also no idea why you want Kabam to ignore everything the playerbase says, you're literally the one playing the game just like the rest of us. You're encouraging something that's unhealthy for the most part and has been killing a lot of the fun for most of us lately for absolutely no reason really.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto doesn't shut down the entire tech class just the metal ones that aren't immune to aar which a bunch of them are. Serpent is immune to anything the mystic class throws at him, even neutralize is like flipping a coin, nice try though.
That's not the point. The comment was "Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with". If that's the case, Magneto shouldn't have that ability either.
I know you love to try and prove me wrong but you're twisting what I was replying to.
I didn't twist anything, the reason that's not busted in Magneto is because class relationships aren't 100% messed with such as with Serpent. There's a noticeable difference between both but you're just here to defend Kabam so I guess it doesn't really matter what I say, it's just wild how you've been at this for years and I've never seen you disagree with Kabam ever, not even once. The lack of self-awareness is insane, get well soon.
Again... I wasn't replying to whether Magneto or Serpent are busted/not busted. Try actually reading what I said and what I replied to.
And I told you that class relationships shouldn't be messed with if they're completely shutting down the class the way Serpent does which isn't the same as Magneto, what's not clicking?
What you said and what the person I was replying to, aren't the same thing. I didn't reply to your comment. I replied to someone else. They didn't mention anything to what you said.
I was replying to a specific thing they said. They said class relationships shouldn't be messed with. Not "class relationships shouldn't be messed with unless it only affects part of the opposite class and not the whole class".
I wasn't talking to you originally but you're trying to add things that wasn't even part of my comment. This isn't the "gotcha" moment that you want it to be. You literally had to add more just to make your argument.
I'm adding more because you can't just generalize like that, you or the other person.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
Yes but in this case cosmic beats everyone, there isn't a single champ from any class that can handle Serpent in BGs the same way you can take Bullseye with Starky, Photon with Hulkling or Onslaught with Juggs. Anyone denying this and saying it isn't busted is just not being real with themselves.
I don't deny that there are aspects in which Serpent is different from other defenders, but then again, we've been saying that about hard defenders for years now. Its always different. Having said that, I don't deny he's different, but my opinion on that matter is: and? Maybe he's supposed to be different. Maybe he's supposed to be especially challenging. Maybe he's supposed to be hard in a way no previous defender is.
There are a lot of defenders that are hard for *most* players to deal with. Korg, Bullseye, Photon. Sure, they are different and sure, if you are a particularly good player with a particularly good roster then those defenders are not as problematic as Serpent is, most of the time. However, that is zero comfort to everyone else. Most players don't see the difference between Serpent and Photon. They are just difficult defenders that mess them up.
Very few players are good enough to tell the difference between them. Now, the question is: should there exist a Serpent that is to them what Korg is to everyone else? Should they get backed into a corner, scramble for the right counters, have to practice tactics, learn to adjust? They are probably among the best of the best of the playerbase, rarely does anything actually cause them to have to do that. Learning a champ is routine for them. Should champs exist that make *them* come onto the forums and make videos that say stuff is busted because it is harder that they want it to be. Not impossible, because not everyone agrees Serpent is busted. Just harder than they want him to be.
You don't need to convince me he's a difficult defender. And I will even accept that he is difficult in a unique way. But 95% of the playerbase doesn't care, because he just kills them slightly better than other defenders already do. Convince me that the very few players capable of telling the difference should not be pushed as hard as Serpent pushes them.
I guarantee this: in a year no one is going to be talking about Serpent much. Most of the people good enough to even be able to articulate a proper argument for Serpent being nerfed will have learned to beat him as a matter of routine. That's just how good most of them have to be to make the argument in the first place (the serious, technical arguments, not the every day game-too-difficult complaints). The only question is: how difficult should it be for them until they get there.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
Kabam ignoring community feedback makes them come off as arrogant if anything, especially when the response is utter silence. Kabam is very knowledgeable of their own game I’m sure, but there are a lot of smart players in the community with opinions worth taking into consideration. It’s also pretty telling when the community is mostly unified on a topic. For specifics from the polls I’ve seen made it seems to be between a 75-25 and 80-20 ration of nerf to not nerf. Gotta keep in mind there’s players advocating for him to stay the same out of purely subjective reasons such as them owning a high rank serpent.
They gave no explanation as to why they found him fair, and no proof of their claims about him being “healthy” being true. We’re basically just being ignored.
just because they're not rushing in with a response doesn't mean they're ignoring us. i'm guessing they will chime in with something when this dies down a bit, but nothing will soothe us anyway.
and what kind of response do you expect? "guys, calm down. things are evolving, we've got ideas cooked up behind the scenes, change is good, it will be ok".
some of us are acting like a space alien dropped serpent off on earth and there's nothing we can do about it. kabam has full control over the game's rules so there will 100% be solutions in the future and everything will balance out and be normal again like it always is.
we're the same bunch of buffoons that wanted absorbing man nerfed when he was launched because he was a big meanie (not SOS, way before it).
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
“Always” is working really hard here — I am not saying every Mystic character needs to be able to beat every Cosmic character.
Guillotine doesn’t have Neutralize or Stagger. Absorbing Man doesn’t have Fate Seal. So on and so forth. So yeah, I actually am pretty aware that not only is it obvious Mystic doesn’t always beat or is the best use-case against Cosmic, in this specific use case, it is obvious that every single Mystic wouldn’t have the tools to beat Serpent.
Which is the point.
Nobody, including me, is begging for a catch-all for an entire class to beat a 5/5 defender.
What I am saying is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to have that kit have plenty of Cosmic strengths but specific carveouts for multiple Cosmic weaknesses — you can’t truly believe four carveouts for this specific kit is “fair.”
I feel like I am taking crazy pills with this conversation — they literally carved out the exceptions because these are the rules. No one is saying “Hey! Why can’t Iron Fist beat the Serpent?! He’s Mystic!!!”
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
it's been said that kabam intends on stretching this game out another 10 years and judging by how cautious they're being with some things like rank up materials and last year's banquet, you can tell that they're serious.
i hate fighting serp and bullseye (that's right, i'm a scrub!) in BGs and serpent is currently a terrible design but we have no idea what's in the works at kabam with character, kit, and class development. maybe we should give it a chance before busting out our phony baloney threats.
Maybe if DLL hadn't said that there will be no such thing as hard counters that completely shut off defenders, people wouldn't be as worried as they are.
Also no idea why you want Kabam to ignore everything the playerbase says, you're literally the one playing the game just like the rest of us. You're encouraging something that's unhealthy for the most part and has been killing a lot of the fun for most of us lately for absolutely no reason really.
the thing is...we're totally clueless about what's going on at kabam.
all we see is a problem (a legitimate one in our eyes) and demand immediate solutions. that's not how the game works. it could take 1-2 years for them to slowly revitalize how classes, kits, and mechanics work. and it could be better for the game and for us overall.
kabam are the creators of a long term ever-evolving chess game with upcoming pieces and sometimes evolving rules and we're complaining about stuff that we don't even know about. is that reasonable?
if i'm being a shill...tell me why. i'm willing to listen.
kabam are the creators of a long term ever-evolving chess game with upcoming pieces and sometimes evolving rules and we're complaining about stuff that we don't even know about. is that reasonable?
if i'm being a shill...tell me why. i'm willing to listen.
I have learnt to accept this decision because I have decided to find ways to deal with this Serpent problem with existing champs until we get more champs that deal with him the hard way. Even tho I wish something was done like it was for Bullseye it's a wall that can be broken down. As least in BG we have the ban button.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto doesn't shut down the entire tech class just the metal ones that aren't immune to aar which a bunch of them are. Serpent is immune to anything the mystic class throws at him, even neutralize is like flipping a coin, nice try though.
That's not the point. The comment was "Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with". If that's the case, Magneto shouldn't have that ability either.
I know you love to try and prove me wrong but you're twisting what I was replying to.
I didn't twist anything, the reason that's not busted in Magneto is because class relationships aren't 100% messed with such as with Serpent. There's a noticeable difference between both but you're just here to defend Kabam so I guess it doesn't really matter what I say, it's just wild how you've been at this for years and I've never seen you disagree with Kabam ever, not even once. The lack of self-awareness is insane, get well soon.
Again... I wasn't replying to whether Magneto or Serpent are busted/not busted. Try actually reading what I said and what I replied to.
And I told you that class relationships shouldn't be messed with if they're completely shutting down the class the way Serpent does which isn't the same as Magneto, what's not clicking?
What you said and what the person I was replying to, aren't the same thing. I didn't reply to your comment. I replied to someone else. They didn't mention anything to what you said.
I was replying to a specific thing they said. They said class relationships shouldn't be messed with. Not "class relationships shouldn't be messed with unless it only affects part of the opposite class and not the whole class".
I wasn't talking to you originally but you're trying to add things that wasn't even part of my comment. This isn't the "gotcha" moment that you want it to be. You literally had to add more just to make your argument.
I'm adding more because you can't just generalize like that, you or the other person.
Sorry, I didn't realize you had rules that I had to follow.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
“Always” is working really hard here — I am not saying every Mystic character needs to be able to beat every Cosmic character.
Guillotine doesn’t have Neutralize or Stagger. Absorbing Man doesn’t have Fate Seal. So on and so forth. So yeah, I actually am pretty aware that not only is it obvious Mystic doesn’t always beat or is the best use-case against Cosmic, in this specific use case, it is obvious that every single Mystic wouldn’t have the tools to beat Serpent.
Which is the point.
Nobody, including me, is begging for a catch-all for an entire class to beat a 5/5 defender.
What I am saying is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to have that kit have plenty of Cosmic strengths but specific carveouts for multiple Cosmic weaknesses — you can’t truly believe four carveouts for this specific kit is “fair.”
I feel like I am taking crazy pills with this conversation — they literally carved out the exceptions because these are the rules. No one is saying “Hey! Why can’t Iron Fist beat the Serpent?! He’s Mystic!!!”
To be honest, the reason why I mostly stayed out of this conversation until it had time to work itself out is precisely for this reason. You claim Serpent is "breaking the rules." When I make reasonable assumptions about what those rules even are, you're quick to nit pick them.
So you tell me: by what design justification do you claim there is a rule that says Cosmic champs should always be vulnerable to fate seal, stagger, and nullify? How do you justify this statement: "how, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize? What rule is he breaking? Because I'm not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, if the fact you aren't actually making a complete argument is something you're going to treat as a strength and not a weakness.
Serpent is breaking no explicit game design rule I'm aware of, and no explicit rule you've stated, and I will now assume that if you don't articulate one, it is because you don't actually know of one and are hoping no one notices.
And by the way, when you say "Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME" what exactly do you mean by that. Because apparently not everyone understands that. Either you don't, or I don't.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
it's been said that kabam intends on stretching this game out another 10 years and judging by how cautious they're being with some things like rank up materials and last year's banquet, you can tell that they're serious.
i hate fighting serp and bullseye (that's right, i'm a scrub!) in BGs and serpent is currently a terrible design but we have no idea what's in the works at kabam with character, kit, and class development. maybe we should give it a chance before busting out our phony baloney threats.
Maybe if DLL hadn't said that there will be no such thing as hard counters that completely shut off defenders, people wouldn't be as worried as they are.
Also no idea why you want Kabam to ignore everything the playerbase says, you're literally the one playing the game just like the rest of us. You're encouraging something that's unhealthy for the most part and has been killing a lot of the fun for most of us lately for absolutely no reason really.
the thing is...we're totally clueless about what's going on at kabam.
all we see is a problem (a legitimate one in our eyes) and demand immediate solutions. that's not how the game works. it could take 1-2 years for them to slowly revitalize how classes, kits, and mechanics work. and it could be better for the game and for us overall.
we don't know....BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW.
So you're suggesting people should just deal with a broken defender for years when Kabam could simply just flip a few switches and use the rebalancing program like it was meant to be used? Or maybe the rebalancing program is only there to prevent another Herc on attack since less revs means less people spending money, while a Herc on defense is good for them since it means more people will be spending resources to beat him wherever he goes with busted nodes like the one from the previous GC meta.
not gonna lie, i like it when kabam doesn't listen to us and just stick to their goals. they're not always right but most of the time they are and if history is any indication, the outrage is temporary and the game moves on.
Kabam ignoring community feedback makes them come off as arrogant if anything, especially when the response is utter silence. Kabam is very knowledgeable of their own game I’m sure, but there are a lot of smart players in the community with opinions worth taking into consideration. It’s also pretty telling when the community is mostly unified on a topic. For specifics from the polls I’ve seen made it seems to be between a 75-25 and 80-20 ration of nerf to not nerf. Gotta keep in mind there’s players advocating for him to stay the same out of purely subjective reasons such as them owning a high rank serpent.
They gave no explanation as to why they found him fair, and no proof of their claims about him being “healthy” being true. We’re basically just being ignored.
just because they're not rushing in with a response doesn't mean they're ignoring us. i'm guessing they will chime in with something when this dies down a bit, but nothing will soothe us anyway.
and what kind of response do you expect? "guys, calm down. things are evolving, we've got ideas cooked up behind the scenes, change is good, it will be ok".
some of us are acting like a space alien dropped serpent off on earth and there's nothing we can do about it. kabam has full control over the game's rules so there will 100% be solutions in the future and everything will balance out and be normal again like it always is.
we're the same bunch of buffoons that wanted absorbing man nerfed when he was launched because he was a big meanie (not SOS, way before it).
it will balance out. it will be ok. it always is.
To be clear I don’t really expect a response, but that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like one or that it wouldn’t be helpful. Serpent being left alone is based entirely in the fact that he is a healthy balanced defender, and they said he is one. The majority of the community can dispute that claim and argue that it isn’t true. They say it is. Ok then, I’d love to hear why. I understand it’s probably not a clear cut answer, but any insight as to what made him balanced in their eyes would be helpful.
You trust kabam, and overall I do too. But that doesn’t mean taking their word for everything. I can still in general trust them without defending every single action. If they decide to nerf silver sable instead of buff her I’m not just gonna say they must have a plan for the future where this will all make sense. I will contest that decision and speak up as to why I think it’s bad. That’s what community feedback is.
I know it will balance out eventually, nobody here is screaming that the game is dying because of this decision. Again, it doesn’t mean I can’t speak against their decision if I see it as wrong.
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
Yes but in this case cosmic beats everyone, there isn't a single champ from any class that can handle Serpent in BGs the same way you can take Bullseye with Starky, Photon with Hulkling or Onslaught with Juggs. Anyone denying this and saying it isn't busted is just not being real with themselves.
I don't deny that there are aspects in which Serpent is different from other defenders, but then again, we've been saying that about hard defenders for years now. Its always different. Having said that, I don't deny he's different, but my opinion on that matter is: and? Maybe he's supposed to be different. Maybe he's supposed to be especially challenging. Maybe he's supposed to be hard in a way no previous defender is.
There are a lot of defenders that are hard for *most* players to deal with. Korg, Bullseye, Photon. Sure, they are different and sure, if you are a particularly good player with a particularly good roster then those defenders are not as problematic as Serpent is, most of the time. However, that is zero comfort to everyone else. Most players don't see the difference between Serpent and Photon. They are just difficult defenders that mess them up.
Very few players are good enough to tell the difference between them. Now, the question is: should there exist a Serpent that is to them what Korg is to everyone else? Should they get backed into a corner, scramble for the right counters, have to practice tactics, learn to adjust? They are probably among the best of the best of the playerbase, rarely does anything actually cause them to have to do that. Learning a champ is routine for them. Should champs exist that make *them* come onto the forums and make videos that say stuff is busted because it is harder that they want it to be. Not impossible, because not everyone agrees Serpent is busted. Just harder than they want him to be.
You don't need to convince me he's a difficult defender. And I will even accept that he is difficult in a unique way. But 95% of the playerbase doesn't care, because he just kills them slightly better than other defenders already do. Convince me that the very few players capable of telling the difference should not be pushed as hard as Serpent pushes them.
I guarantee this: in a year no one is going to be talking about Serpent much. Most of the people good enough to even be able to articulate a proper argument for Serpent being nerfed will have learned to beat him as a matter of routine. That's just how good most of them have to be to make the argument in the first place (the serious, technical arguments, not the every day game-too-difficult complaints). The only question is: how difficult should it be for them until they get there.
I can assure you that if they nerfed him slightly, he would still be very different to every other defender we have in the game including Bullseye and Onslaught. Take Herc and Ghost, one of them is broken the other one is God tier, if you nerfed Herc's immortality or special intercept, he would still be on a completely different league compared to Ghost. It's exactly the same with Serpent and every other meta relevant defender here, he should've been nerfed and doing so still wouldn't have to taken him from the level he's currently at down to Bullseye level. He would've still been above Bullseye and every other defender in the game just not as overpowered and busted as he currently is.
You realize that if Korg is Serpent level for those people then Serpent is even more broken correct? I don't know how that helped your argument in any way.
95% of the playerbase doesn't care? Lagacy's poll alone has close to 12k votes out of which approximately 8k do care and want him nerfed so I don't really believe any of that.
See this is the problem with most of you that are against the nerf, you assume people can't beat him. That is not the problem here, the problem is that because his kit is loaded with so much bs, all it takes is one node like the one from the last GC meta to turn him into a nearly unkillable iron wall, if we didn't have competitive modes such as BGs that wouldn't be an issue but we do. He absolutely breaks BGs with so many nodes in the game (just wait til you face him next season with rich get richer and crit me) they would literally have to design metas around him in order to not break the game, does any of this sound familiar to you? *cough Herc cough*
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
Serpent shouldn't be countering the mystic class. Class relationships and masteries should not be messed with. His kit is so rigged that everyone has forgotten his special attacks being undexable from the start 😂
So do you want them to change Magneto too?
Magneto was and should be the only exception given the nature of his powers. Serpent has ABSOLUTELY no reasonable explanation of him being able bypass the ENTIRE MYSTIC CLASS. This all started with mystic defenders slowly becoming nullify immune, then it went on to fateseal then stagger we let it slide because alot of people on here were defending kabam and explaining how cosmic defenders need It or else any mystic would be able to take them out easily. It wasn't that big of a deal because tigra started gaining popularity for her neutralize which was our escape from big cosmic mystic countering threats. We let it slide but now SERPENT is able to BYPASS EVERY MYSTIC ABILITY and kabam has now introduced a science champion who has UNCLEANSABLE debuffs, this could only be the beginning of more skill countering science champions. If the community does not start stating their disapproval on these things, it will only continue just like the photon undexable specials which we let slide because she was a well rounded champion and 2023 champions were mostly HITS and now we have serpent. Photon started the willpower mastery tampering, now we had onslaught as if his special attacks weren't hard enough to dex and the UNAVOIDABLE neuroshock damage you took by making one mistake weren't enough, he also punishes you for PARRYING(which is a mastery itself and a skill we all learnt) which now shuts of willpower as well in the process). We then had bullseye who also punished you for DEXING with the instant bleeds(thank GOD it got removed), then dust who shuts off WILLPOWER AS WELL and now serpent. This has got to stop please...
So they shouldn't introduce any new challenges within Champion kits for the duration of the game? I think that's called Candy Crush.
See, it’s this kind of Straw Man that actually hurts legitimate, honest and fair criticism.
Nobody is talking about “the duration of the game.” We’re talking a specific kit with a specific set of mechanics.
He gave specific examples of what game design can turn into when various accepted rules of the game being played start being disregarded — anything can be coded into the game to make it challenging, but that doesn’t make it fair.
You mentioned Magneto, whose status as a character/kit that is effective against Metal is simply an outlier even in the lore — the character itself is one that Sentinels have never really had an answer for. It’s the CHARACTER, not the KIT.
In this case, the kit is specifically designed with multiple carveouts meant to disregard class traits. That is not even remotely the same
The KITs are based on the CHARACTERs. They're one and the same. They're also two completely different things as one is a comic book story the other is a video game. Can't have it both ways and you also can't just make em interchangeable with each other. That's not how it works.
What are you saying? I am totally confused. It’s a video game that primarily uses comic book characters, and the rules for the vast, vast, vast majority of those characters comes from the lore of the comics.
But the game has clearly established rules — you can’t have the game tout its “RPG Elements” when anyone who has ever played an RPG knows that the character encounters are ALWAYS based on rules.
Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME. We also understand that means in this game, yeah, Black Cat can actually beat the Hulk with a whole bunch of Bleeds.
No one came in here and said, “You know, I am really uncomfortable with Black Cat soloing Overseers armed with a Cosmic Cube. Nerf that kit.”
Because we do get that it’s a game, and if a Skill kit is tough on a Science kit, I get it. We all get it. Purify and cleanse and bleed and etc., all day long.
How, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize?
In every RPG game I've ever played, no "RPG rule' was ever absolute. There was never a Rock Always Beats Scissors rule. There were always exceptions to those rules. More importantly, even calling them exceptions implies the rules were absolute but with carve out exceptions. That was not generally the case. Rather, the rules dictated how things worked in general, as a kind of baseline, but with a lot of room for more complexity, and different rules and effects interacted in different, sometimes complex ways.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
“Always” is working really hard here — I am not saying every Mystic character needs to be able to beat every Cosmic character.
Guillotine doesn’t have Neutralize or Stagger. Absorbing Man doesn’t have Fate Seal. So on and so forth. So yeah, I actually am pretty aware that not only is it obvious Mystic doesn’t always beat or is the best use-case against Cosmic, in this specific use case, it is obvious that every single Mystic wouldn’t have the tools to beat Serpent.
Which is the point.
Nobody, including me, is begging for a catch-all for an entire class to beat a 5/5 defender.
What I am saying is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to have that kit have plenty of Cosmic strengths but specific carveouts for multiple Cosmic weaknesses — you can’t truly believe four carveouts for this specific kit is “fair.”
I feel like I am taking crazy pills with this conversation — they literally carved out the exceptions because these are the rules. No one is saying “Hey! Why can’t Iron Fist beat the Serpent?! He’s Mystic!!!”
To be honest, the reason why I mostly stayed out of this conversation until it had time to work itself out is precisely for this reason. You claim Serpent is "breaking the rules." When I make reasonable assumptions about what those rules even are, you're quick to nit pick them.
So you tell me: by what design justification do you claim there is a rule that says Cosmic champs should always be vulnerable to fate seal, stagger, and nullify? How do you justify this statement: "how, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize? What rule is he breaking? Because I'm not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, if the fact you aren't actually making a complete argument is something you're going to treat as a strength and not a weakness.
Serpent is breaking no explicit game design rule I'm aware of, and no explicit rule you've stated, and I will now assume that if you don't articulate one, it is because you don't actually know of one and are hoping no one notices.
And by the way, when you say "Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME" what exactly do you mean by that. Because apparently not everyone understands that. Either you don't, or I don't.
So you’re saying that the design principles of these classes are something I and only I made up and understand? That because I can’t show you a written document, there is obviously no game design rule for classes that a mere mortal could discern?
I am gonna some random statements here, ask some random questions. If the only person here who understand what I am about to say is me, then no one will be able to answer them. No one will even understand what I am about to say.
1. There is a class in this game that features Prowess. Not every character. But features. 2. There is a class in this game that features Armor Up. Not every character. But features. 3. There is a class in this game that features Purify/Cleanse. Not every character. Features. 4. There is a class in this game where the kits buffs are typically active. 5. There is a class in this game where the kits typically attempt to place numerous debuffs. 6. There is a class in this game where the kits typically attempt to counter active buffs.
See, here’s the thing about that:
Don’t try to lecture me about “design justification” and “what rules of the game” when Nimrod exists and specifically attacks one aspect of one class. “Invalidate” doesn’t eliminate Fury. It eliminates Prowess. Same with Guardian, which, oddly enough, blocks Unblockable Special Attacks…but wait. Hang on a second. Not every Unblockable Special Attack? Only from one specific class?
Huh. Certainly there’s no rule or design justification for Guardian to block all of the Special Attacks of one class — that’s crazy! Who could make up such a ridiculous thing
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
One could almost believe that her damage was made to be burst so she couldn’t directly counter him at this point.
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
One could almost believe that her damage was made to be burst so she couldn’t directly counter him at this point.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's burst and in fact I am expecting it to be burst, dot is way too good to be true lmao.
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
One could almost believe that her damage was made to be burst so she couldn’t directly counter him at this point.
It’s probably burst damage with a mechanic similar to Prowler. He deals a bunch of big red numbers back to back when all those ruptures “burst”.
And again: I never said Mystic should “always” have perfect counters. I even said IN THIS THREAD that the problem isn’t that it has a carveout or two, it has four for a busted mechanic — how is this even controversial or displaying some lack of understanding of what this game is and has been?
We all know what the Class Wheel is and what tendencies these classes have. No one said that the kit shouldn’t be 5/5 on defense. But no one needs to pretend like how it got there isn’t against how this game’s kits have tended to operate — it literally spells out the carveouts in the kit
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
One could almost believe that her damage was made to be burst so she couldn’t directly counter him at this point.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's burst and in fact I am expecting it to be burst, dot is way too good to be true lmao.
If it’s dot I’m buying her featureds. She looks good as is tbh but I really want her to be good for serpent
I’m not too hung up on the class relationship side of things outside of the fact that he counters every current mystic ability except atrophy that could stop him, the rarest ability in the class and also one that is currently underpowered to actually be significant and found in kits that don’t really work well on attack…
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Shathra has atrophy and really solid damage HOWEVER if the damage is burst then she will absolutely suck against him, if it's dot we might have the best counter so far joining the game soon which could alleviate some of these issues but is still unhealthy on the long run imo. We'll see once that deep dive is out, praying it is dot since the red numbers were popping up way too fast to be burst damage but I could be wrong of course.
One could almost believe that her damage was made to be burst so she couldn’t directly counter him at this point.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's burst and in fact I am expecting it to be burst, dot is way too good to be true lmao.
If it’s dot I’m buying her featureds. She looks good as is tbh but I really want her to be good for serpent
If it's dot I will get the pre-release bundle as well. Someone pointed out it looks a lot like Prowler's bursts and if that is the case then bummer cause she will suck for Serpent but if Kabam is generous for the first time this year and her damage is dot indeed then yeah, I'm gonna get that pre release and she goes straight to r6 sig 200. The atrophy and the power steal already address the main pain points all she needs is to be able to play around that dread and she could be the best.
Now that I think about it, this might've been the plan all along. Leave him as is and force people to spend a **** ton of money to get 7* Shathra... Smart, evil sure but smart.
Comments
Oh, in addition to the middle finger to most of the Mystic class, he'll also say a slur to the other Mystic champions by telling them their Neutralize will fail some of the time.
it's been said that kabam intends on stretching this game out another 10 years and judging by how cautious they're being with some things like rank up materials and last year's banquet, you can tell that they're serious.
i hate fighting serp and bullseye (that's right, i'm a scrub!) in BGs and serpent is currently a terrible design but we have no idea what's in the works at kabam with character, kit, and class development. maybe we should give it a chance before busting out our phony baloney threats.
They gave no explanation as to why they found him fair, and no proof of their claims about him being “healthy” being true. We’re basically just being ignored.
Take the all time classic MMORPG class rule of Tank, DPS, Heal. Even there, most games evolved those classes so that tanks could sometimes do significant damage, healers could sometimes tank, DPS could sometimes offer support. The idea that those roles should be black and white and absolute, and bending them hurt the games because they weakened those roles and made teaming redundant is an argument I participated in literally hundreds of times. Most of the time the absolutists were ultimately on the losing side of that argument, because absolute rules like that are ultimately more stifling than beneficial.
There was never really a time in MCOC where Mystic > Cosmic was an absolute rule. In the old days, class identity was so weak that there was no way to enforce the rule. There was just class advantage and that was it. These days class identities are more complex than just the class definitions, and because they are more complex, interactions between champions follow more complex rules than just the class identity relationships. Class relationships are more general rules of thumb, but with a ton of divergences.
And not only is there no rule prohibiting exceptions to class relationships, there's actually a very good reason for the rule to be explicitly broken. My recollection is that Kabam did mention this somewhere, but I can't think of where. Regardless, the reason why class relationships cannot be absolute is because in an era where the game has movedd to more RPG-like game mechanics and difficulty design, absolute class relationships hurt the primary reason why kabam is doing RPG-like design in the first place: roster checks. They want content to challenge players' rosters. They want content where the counter to this is that, and possessing the best counters offers significant advantages. This has to be tempered, of course, you don't want most content to be too restrictive, but it also doesn't make sense for counters to be so ubiquitous that everyone always has the best counters all the time available. That makes the whole enterprise meaningless.
Basically, if Mystic always beats Cosmic, and Cosmic always beats Tech, and so on, then that means you can't make a Cosmic defender that particularly challenges anyone's roster, because all Mystics would work. So you want design room to make champs that rely on specific mechanics that are not completely widespread. Mechanics strongly associated with class identity are, by definition, very widespread. Average defenders can be reasonably taken down by an entire class of champion. But deliberately hard defenders require a more restrictive set of counters.
Also no idea why you want Kabam to ignore everything the playerbase says, you're literally the one playing the game just like the rest of us. You're encouraging something that's unhealthy for the most part and has been killing a lot of the fun for most of us lately for absolutely no reason really.
There are a lot of defenders that are hard for *most* players to deal with. Korg, Bullseye, Photon. Sure, they are different and sure, if you are a particularly good player with a particularly good roster then those defenders are not as problematic as Serpent is, most of the time. However, that is zero comfort to everyone else. Most players don't see the difference between Serpent and Photon. They are just difficult defenders that mess them up.
Very few players are good enough to tell the difference between them. Now, the question is: should there exist a Serpent that is to them what Korg is to everyone else? Should they get backed into a corner, scramble for the right counters, have to practice tactics, learn to adjust? They are probably among the best of the best of the playerbase, rarely does anything actually cause them to have to do that. Learning a champ is routine for them. Should champs exist that make *them* come onto the forums and make videos that say stuff is busted because it is harder that they want it to be. Not impossible, because not everyone agrees Serpent is busted. Just harder than they want him to be.
You don't need to convince me he's a difficult defender. And I will even accept that he is difficult in a unique way. But 95% of the playerbase doesn't care, because he just kills them slightly better than other defenders already do. Convince me that the very few players capable of telling the difference should not be pushed as hard as Serpent pushes them.
I guarantee this: in a year no one is going to be talking about Serpent much. Most of the people good enough to even be able to articulate a proper argument for Serpent being nerfed will have learned to beat him as a matter of routine. That's just how good most of them have to be to make the argument in the first place (the serious, technical arguments, not the every day game-too-difficult complaints). The only question is: how difficult should it be for them until they get there.
and what kind of response do you expect? "guys, calm down. things are evolving, we've got ideas cooked up behind the scenes, change is good, it will be ok".
some of us are acting like a space alien dropped serpent off on earth and there's nothing we can do about it. kabam has full control over the game's rules so there will 100% be solutions in the future and everything will balance out and be normal again like it always is.
we're the same bunch of buffoons that wanted absorbing man nerfed when he was launched because he was a big meanie (not SOS, way before it).
it will balance out. it will be ok. it always is.
Guillotine doesn’t have Neutralize or Stagger. Absorbing Man doesn’t have Fate Seal. So on and so forth. So yeah, I actually am pretty aware that not only is it obvious Mystic doesn’t always beat or is the best use-case against Cosmic, in this specific use case, it is obvious that every single Mystic wouldn’t have the tools to beat Serpent.
Which is the point.
Nobody, including me, is begging for a catch-all for an entire class to beat a 5/5 defender.
What I am saying is that it’s absolutely ridiculous to have that kit have plenty of Cosmic strengths but specific carveouts for multiple Cosmic weaknesses — you can’t truly believe four carveouts for this specific kit is “fair.”
I feel like I am taking crazy pills with this conversation — they literally carved out the exceptions because these are the rules. No one is saying “Hey! Why can’t Iron Fist beat the Serpent?! He’s Mystic!!!”
all we see is a problem (a legitimate one in our eyes) and demand immediate solutions. that's not how the game works. it could take 1-2 years for them to slowly revitalize how classes, kits, and mechanics work. and it could be better for the game and for us overall.
we don't know....BECAUSE WE DON'T KNOW.
if i'm being a shill...tell me why. i'm willing to listen.
So you tell me: by what design justification do you claim there is a rule that says Cosmic champs should always be vulnerable to fate seal, stagger, and nullify? How do you justify this statement: "how, exactly, is Serpent adhering to the rules of the game, as a Cosmic character with overall immunity to Fate Seal, specific immunities of Stagger and Nullify only to serve a specific mechanic, and enhanced resistance to Neutralize? What rule is he breaking? Because I'm not going to give you the benefit of the doubt, if the fact you aren't actually making a complete argument is something you're going to treat as a strength and not a weakness.
Serpent is breaking no explicit game design rule I'm aware of, and no explicit rule you've stated, and I will now assume that if you don't articulate one, it is because you don't actually know of one and are hoping no one notices.
And by the way, when you say "Everyone understands that the Class Wheel and the traits are the rules of THIS GAME" what exactly do you mean by that. Because apparently not everyone understands that. Either you don't, or I don't.
You trust kabam, and overall I do too. But that doesn’t mean taking their word for everything. I can still in general trust them without defending every single action. If they decide to nerf silver sable instead of buff her I’m not just gonna say they must have a plan for the future where this will all make sense. I will contest that decision and speak up as to why I think it’s bad. That’s what community feedback is.
I know it will balance out eventually, nobody here is screaming that the game is dying because of this decision. Again, it doesn’t mean I can’t speak against their decision if I see it as wrong.
So basically we need an atrophy attacker that deals high damage and has such a high powered version of atrophy that every buff on a timer becomes irrelevant. Sounds like a really healthy option for the game.
Take Herc and Ghost, one of them is broken the other one is God tier, if you nerfed Herc's immortality or special intercept, he would still be on a completely different league compared to Ghost. It's exactly the same with Serpent and every other meta relevant defender here, he should've been nerfed and doing so still wouldn't have to taken him from the level he's currently at down to Bullseye level. He would've still been above Bullseye and every other defender in the game just not as overpowered and busted as he currently is.
You realize that if Korg is Serpent level for those people then Serpent is even more broken correct? I don't know how that helped your argument in any way.
95% of the playerbase doesn't care? Lagacy's poll alone has close to 12k votes out of which approximately 8k do care and want him nerfed so I don't really believe any of that.
See this is the problem with most of you that are against the nerf, you assume people can't beat him. That is not the problem here, the problem is that because his kit is loaded with so much bs, all it takes is one node like the one from the last GC meta to turn him into a nearly unkillable iron wall, if we didn't have competitive modes such as BGs that wouldn't be an issue but we do. He absolutely breaks BGs with so many nodes in the game (just wait til you face him next season with rich get richer and crit me) they would literally have to design metas around him in order to not break the game, does any of this sound familiar to you? *cough Herc cough*
I am gonna some random statements here, ask some random questions. If the only person here who understand what I am about to say is me, then no one will be able to answer them. No one will even understand what I am about to say.
1. There is a class in this game that features Prowess. Not every character. But features.
2. There is a class in this game that features Armor Up. Not every character. But features.
3. There is a class in this game that features Purify/Cleanse. Not every character. Features.
4. There is a class in this game where the kits buffs are typically active.
5. There is a class in this game where the kits typically attempt to place numerous debuffs.
6. There is a class in this game where the kits typically attempt to counter active buffs.
See, here’s the thing about that:
Don’t try to lecture me about “design justification” and “what rules of the game” when Nimrod exists and specifically attacks one aspect of one class. “Invalidate” doesn’t eliminate Fury. It eliminates Prowess. Same with Guardian, which, oddly enough, blocks Unblockable Special Attacks…but wait. Hang on a second. Not every Unblockable Special Attack? Only from one specific class?
Huh. Certainly there’s no rule or design justification for Guardian to block all of the Special Attacks of one class — that’s crazy! Who could make up such a ridiculous thing
We all know what the Class Wheel is and what tendencies these classes have. No one said that the kit shouldn’t be 5/5 on defense. But no one needs to pretend like how it got there isn’t against how this game’s kits have tended to operate — it literally spells out the carveouts in the kit
Now that I think about it, this might've been the plan all along. Leave him as is and force people to spend a **** ton of money to get 7* Shathra... Smart, evil sure but smart.