Is Serpent better on offense NOT awakened?

I should finally be getting my 7* Serpent - he has evaded me for a long time. Definitely feel like it is a good thing given that Kabam seems to more and more be gating higher end content for 7* champs.

I already have a 6*R5A max sig Serpent that I still pretty regularly use on defense in BGs. My question is - how much a priority should I be placing on awakening a 7* Serpent? I think I remember reading at some point that he is actually better on offense not awakened - is that true?

Hoping someone who is more of a Serpent expert can help me out with this one.

Comments

Furrymoosen

He's definitely not "better unawakened", but if your focus is offense only then you don't need to worry quite as much about his awakened ability. He's still solid on offense without it.
7* hits harder and has more survivability, just won't have the safety net without the dupe and won't be as valuable of a dual threat in general.

captain_rogers

He is better on offense unawakened only if you die a lot.
Unawakened, he'll always have 3 charges. But once awakened, whenever you trigger death immunity, you'll lose charges in the next fight and also your fury. But the death immunity can save your potions. So I'll prefer him awakened even for attack.

Until you dupe your 7*, use the 6* for defense. Serpent needs his duped ability a lot in defense.

Pikolu

Really the only place you're going to want serpent unduped is the #gods carina challenge where you're most likely to trigger the death immunity in some way

smdam38

He’s a pretty amazing attacker unawakened.
Just keep throwing sp1 and he’ll kill pretty much anyone.

WednesdayLength

I prefer my unduped 7 star in incursions just to be able to keep the ramp, but for the most part he does do better awakened. Dll already said that if not for the optics of buffing serpent during rebalancing he would have added a pre fight to turn his death immunity off which I would have loved lol

Squidopus

I don’t see people mentioning it a lot in these discussions about Serpent, but he doesn’t actually lose out on that much damage when awakened if he’s high sig. Yes an untimely Death Immunity trigger loses you your Dread and thus your Fury Buff potency, but his sig ability also gives him extra attack rating per Culforce charge that, at max charges and max sig, is a roughly equivalent boost to the max Dread Fury anyways. For me, the bigger issue is losing out on the utility of Dread; the reduced burst damage can be a big game-changer for certain fights and it sucks to lose out because you messed up once. Regardless, the sig offers enough that I think getting it is still a top priority. I rocked my 6* max sig Serpent in BGs for a long time over my unduped 7* because the awakening is such a valuable part of his defensive threat, and the Death Immunity is still a valuable safety net on offense despite the drawbacks.

Oakenshield

Thanks all - this is really helpful. Exactly what I was looking.

ChrisPowell

Are you asking if you're 7* unawakened vs 6* awakened is better on offense? The answer is the 7* is likely better on offense. But that awakened ability makes the 6* much better in battlegrounds due to making him a defensive option.

Two minutes ago I had 6* serpent down with 85% of my health left. Then during death immunity phase he built to an sp3 and killed me with 27% of his own health. If that was an unawakened 7* r4 I probably would have won that.

smdam38

Very slept on attacker even unawakened.