No Serpent Rebalance (reupload)
M2tthew_B
Member Posts: 2 ★
Dear all,
I’ve just seen the rebalance notes on The Serpent and was very surprised to see that no changes were going to be made to this character.
I’ve been playing this game for several years – I believe my main account is almost 6 years old and I’ve had accounts before that. I have played in AW for 4 years and have been passionate about BGs since their release. In that time I have been scared of fighting many champions including Quicksilver, Guillotine 99 and Onslaught. But I have never seen a champion take such a commanding hold of the defensive meta as The Serpent. I recently got my own Serpent so I will go through the rebalance notes and share some of my own experiences in this post as well as suggesting some possible changes.
The rebalance notes mention some defensive threats on his kit such as power gain, death immunity and pierce. These are 3 of many, many more defensive threats that The Serpent has to offer. Just a couple much more problematic defensive threats to mention are his dread charges that decrease the potency of instant damaging effects from champions by 20% each and his true focus on special attacks meaning you cannot dex out of his special attacks. His dread charges either take out or seriously limit Galan, Spider Ham, Silk, Hulk, Red Guardian, Scorpion, Tigra and Knull as offensive options. These are listed just off the top of my head – there are more. His true focus buff takes out champions such as Mordo who would be scoring respectively in BGs if not for the enormous block damage they are forced to take.
This does not mention his exceptionally powerful resist up passive that severely mitigates the damage both energy and physical sources can deal to him and the massive power gain he gets when death immune at high sig that allows him to throw multiple undexable specials back-to-back before you can close the fight.
The rebalance notes also mention that he is beginning to ‘stabilise at a strong but healthy level.’ At least in the case of recent BGs seasons, this is simply not true. Last season we had the extend node that made his power gain and immortality so strong it was a death sentence to anyone other than America Chavez, who still struggled to finish fights due to the armour ups present. The season before that we had the archaos node that randomly let Serpent throw unblockable and undexable special attacks at his helpless opponents. This season we have the bolster – energy node that will limit Kushala’s performance against him. In the case of AW, I am a member of a respectable platinum level alliance that has found itself on many occasions having to throw champions at a Serpent final boss because even our best counters in a battlegroup could not handle him at the 7* Rank 3 power level.
I have a 6* rank 5 ascended Serpent, and in the most recent off-season I have seen people throw Kushala, America Chavez, Wiccan and White Tiger at Serpent in a generic BGs meta and struggle horribly. These are his some of his best counters that players have discovered as mentioned in the rebalance notes, so the fact that this matchup is causing consistent deaths and round wins for me in these circumstances leads me to reject Kabam’s claim that these champions are ‘thriving.’ I don’t claim to be at the peak of BGs so I understand that some stronger players could do better, but for the majority of the player base I believe he is simply too strong of a defender to not be rebalanced.
I will not just complain, however. I also want to offer suggestions to Kabam about how to rebalance Serpent while still allowing him to be a punishing defender. There are many ways to go about this, but I will suggest just two that I think will balance him while still allowing him to be punishing.
Firstly, remove some or all of the dread charges he gains as a defender or significantly reduce the potency of their instant damage mitigation. This will bring some of the champions listed above back into play. Secondly, remove his true focus from his defensive kit. As an attacker his true focus has provided him with great utility but the block damage players are taking as a result of this combined with his enormous power gain cannot be described as ‘balanced.’ It is unnecessary. There are many other aspects of Serpent’s defensive kit that could be adjusted to balance him out but I believe these simple changes will have the most impact.
I really hope this post is noticed and Kabam reconsider their decision.
Thanks, Matty.
(This is a reupload as I think I put the last one in the wrong section)
I’ve just seen the rebalance notes on The Serpent and was very surprised to see that no changes were going to be made to this character.
I’ve been playing this game for several years – I believe my main account is almost 6 years old and I’ve had accounts before that. I have played in AW for 4 years and have been passionate about BGs since their release. In that time I have been scared of fighting many champions including Quicksilver, Guillotine 99 and Onslaught. But I have never seen a champion take such a commanding hold of the defensive meta as The Serpent. I recently got my own Serpent so I will go through the rebalance notes and share some of my own experiences in this post as well as suggesting some possible changes.
The rebalance notes mention some defensive threats on his kit such as power gain, death immunity and pierce. These are 3 of many, many more defensive threats that The Serpent has to offer. Just a couple much more problematic defensive threats to mention are his dread charges that decrease the potency of instant damaging effects from champions by 20% each and his true focus on special attacks meaning you cannot dex out of his special attacks. His dread charges either take out or seriously limit Galan, Spider Ham, Silk, Hulk, Red Guardian, Scorpion, Tigra and Knull as offensive options. These are listed just off the top of my head – there are more. His true focus buff takes out champions such as Mordo who would be scoring respectively in BGs if not for the enormous block damage they are forced to take.
This does not mention his exceptionally powerful resist up passive that severely mitigates the damage both energy and physical sources can deal to him and the massive power gain he gets when death immune at high sig that allows him to throw multiple undexable specials back-to-back before you can close the fight.
The rebalance notes also mention that he is beginning to ‘stabilise at a strong but healthy level.’ At least in the case of recent BGs seasons, this is simply not true. Last season we had the extend node that made his power gain and immortality so strong it was a death sentence to anyone other than America Chavez, who still struggled to finish fights due to the armour ups present. The season before that we had the archaos node that randomly let Serpent throw unblockable and undexable special attacks at his helpless opponents. This season we have the bolster – energy node that will limit Kushala’s performance against him. In the case of AW, I am a member of a respectable platinum level alliance that has found itself on many occasions having to throw champions at a Serpent final boss because even our best counters in a battlegroup could not handle him at the 7* Rank 3 power level.
I have a 6* rank 5 ascended Serpent, and in the most recent off-season I have seen people throw Kushala, America Chavez, Wiccan and White Tiger at Serpent in a generic BGs meta and struggle horribly. These are his some of his best counters that players have discovered as mentioned in the rebalance notes, so the fact that this matchup is causing consistent deaths and round wins for me in these circumstances leads me to reject Kabam’s claim that these champions are ‘thriving.’ I don’t claim to be at the peak of BGs so I understand that some stronger players could do better, but for the majority of the player base I believe he is simply too strong of a defender to not be rebalanced.
I will not just complain, however. I also want to offer suggestions to Kabam about how to rebalance Serpent while still allowing him to be a punishing defender. There are many ways to go about this, but I will suggest just two that I think will balance him while still allowing him to be punishing.
Firstly, remove some or all of the dread charges he gains as a defender or significantly reduce the potency of their instant damage mitigation. This will bring some of the champions listed above back into play. Secondly, remove his true focus from his defensive kit. As an attacker his true focus has provided him with great utility but the block damage players are taking as a result of this combined with his enormous power gain cannot be described as ‘balanced.’ It is unnecessary. There are many other aspects of Serpent’s defensive kit that could be adjusted to balance him out but I believe these simple changes will have the most impact.
I really hope this post is noticed and Kabam reconsider their decision.
Thanks, Matty.
(This is a reupload as I think I put the last one in the wrong section)
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