We need to have a talk about Defenders

NONYABIZZ

So captain Britain is the latest defender in town. She uses a safeguard mechanic.

Now, here's the problem, other than the unreasonable flooding of defenders in the last 2 years, every defender released simce 2025 has now began resisting your regular means of damage.
Why has the game decided to kill of crit damage? Its like if you don't do damage via red numbers you're absolutely worthless, let's recap.

DL Thanos -protection (NO YELLOW numbers, only red)
Gentle- reverb passive granting PROTECTION AGAINST CRIT DAMAGE and is practically unkillable with champs that deal physical damage when he reaches that sp2. Once again (no yellow numbers, only red)

Arnim zola( cowardice meaning NO YELLOW damage via SPECIALS (not only against mutants)
Dark phoenix safeguard meaning NO YELLOW only RED numbers

Captain Britain SAFEGUARD as well AND UNAVOIDABLE Neuroshock damage when you strike her however, you cannot kill her as fast as you would like with regular champions.
Yelena caps attack ratings at the start of the fight.
Diverting from the initial point, EVERY DEFENDER now resists damage to an extent mostly coming in the form of critical damage mitigation.

2025 defenders have made me appreciate onslaught and enchantress despite how unfair they also were upon release.
These defenders now come with the defensive mechanics AND UNAVOIDABLE DAMAGE.
It used to be, play around their mechanics, use a strong damage dealer and kill them now you have to play around mechanic but instead of rewarding you for surviving and getting to your damage cashout you also cannot kill them as you usually would.

What the hell are these design choices???
Unavoidable damage + damage resistance??
Whats the theme of 2026 going to be? Unavoidable damage + damage resistance + defenders who disconnect you from the internet causing instant loss???

MrSanguini

DThanos's protection applies to everything, not just crits.
Zola isn't punishing crits (at least not to the point that they ignore his armor), he's punishing specials. He still goes down to basics.
Dark Phoenix safeguard also protects her from damaging effects, so again, crits aren't the only ones being punished. In fact, a big crit will immediately remove the safeguard and let you hit her as hard as you want afterward.

Not against your whole argument, just about the yellow numbers. They haven't been 'killed off'.

PT_99

We just got 2 pure attackers also on stream,
One who beats Serpent
Other do Zola

Raganator

PT_99 said:

We just got 2 pure attackers also on stream,
One who beats Serpent
Other do Zola

And beats Dark Phoenix.

JackTheSnack

Raganator said:

PT_99 said:

We just got 2 pure attackers also on stream,
One who beats Serpent
Other do Zola

And beats Dark Phoenix.

Yeah this was the big kicker for me when I saw she was immune to all incinerate effects. Or are you referring to Nico? I wonder how the ability not to place incinerate affects burst damage

Emilia90

DThanos is tanky but very manageable with most mystics, same goes for a lot of these

I think Yelena is too niche and stally rn though

WednesdayLength

JackTheSnack said:

Raganator said:

PT_99 said:

We just got 2 pure attackers also on stream,
One who beats Serpent
Other do Zola

And beats Dark Phoenix.

Yeah this was the big kicker for me when I saw she was immune to all incinerate effects. Or are you referring to Nico? I wonder how the ability not to place incinerate affects burst damage

I mean buff immunity is her counter to dark phoenix

Squidopus

Half the defenders you listed as blunting only hit damage also counter red numbers too. As mentioned, DThanos’s protection works against literally everything, which is why it’s such a powerful ability. Gentle’s physical resistance also counters any physical burst damage and DOTs like rupture, whiplash, and trauma. Yelena’s attack rating cap is just as detrimental to a number of damaging effects that also scale off attack rating. Dark Phoenix has damaging effect resistance built in.

The defensive power creep is real and I get why not everyone’s a fan, but the fact that you can’t solve every problem with hit damage specifically feels like a weird thing to hold up the spotlight to. There’s just as many problems if not more that you can’t solve with red numbers, lest you forget about immunities and resistances and such; tell every Kate Bishop player that their non-hit coldsnap damage has no counters the next time they fight DThanos or Serpent or Sentinel.

Chosen85

It's gotten ridiculous. The defenders being released are released too close together and they're too restrictive. They're just throwing a bunch of questing nodes in their kits at this point. Then a counter gets released that's only good for said defender but pretty much sucks everywhere else.

EdisonLaw

JackTheSnack said:

Raganator said:

PT_99 said:

We just got 2 pure attackers also on stream,
One who beats Serpent
Other do Zola

And beats Dark Phoenix.

Yeah this was the big kicker for me when I saw she was immune to all incinerate effects. Or are you referring to Nico? I wonder how the ability not to place incinerate affects burst damage

She's not immune to poison though, and poison is one of her weaknesses

EdisonLaw

Chosen85 said:

It's gotten ridiculous. The defenders being released are released too close together and they're too restrictive. They're just throwing a bunch of questing nodes in their kits at this point. Then a counter gets released that's only good for said defender but pretty much sucks everywhere else.

Plus Kabam said they were supposedly slowing down with defenders

KillerM

I agreed with that the champs they releasing are just battleground related.. oh yeaah lets being zola out next month bring the counter for it.. oh yeaah dark phoenix out next month counter for it… its becoming to predictable