Rebirth Champion Updates

MCOC Team

Overview

The August Rebirth Event features a pool of Champions released at the 7-Star rarity for the first time! That pool is:

• Viv Vision
  
• Cull Obsidian
  
• Doctor Voodoo
  
• Anti-Venom
  
• Night Thrasher
  
• Sabretooth
  

Any time we prepare for the release of Champions at a new rarity, we seek to ensure they can land as well as possible to progress the game and provide Summoners with a fun experience. This involves taking into account how they can be obtained, how they fit into the meta-game of The Contest, and their general power level, just to name a few considerations. Sometimes, these factors lead us to ask questions like “Should we update this Champion,” or “If we wanted to, would we even have time amidst everything else we’re doing?” The small updates to Abomination (Immortal) in the Heart of Fire event is a recent example of this.

In the case of the Rebirth pool, we identified that all the Champions could be released as-is, but that we would love to update some of them. In this case, our Champion and Balance teams were just able to squeeze in updates to everyone we felt could benefit from modernization–all of them with the exception of Viv Vision, who only received some small cleanup and bug fixes because we already expect her to be quite a powerful addition to the 7-Star roster. All six champions benefited from a thorough bug pass, though, and will perform a bit more reliably because of that.

Context

Before dropping the full change log below, we want to be really clear about expectations for future additions of Champions to the 7-Star or any new-to-them rarity: our general goal is to release fun, relevant Champions. As time allows, for any pool of Champions released at a new tier, we may want to perform a small update of anyone we feel falls too short of a modern Champion, with consideration of the acquisition method in mind.

What exactly does “as time allows” mean? What is the definition of a healthy, interesting, usable, modern Champion? How does the acquisition method matter? These are nuanced and situational enough that we want to consider these on a case-by-case basis rather than trying to establish some rigid guidelines. The above philosophy will be our guiding light, and this experience will inform future similar cycles just as Abomination (Immortal) in Heart of Fire informed this one.

With that said, the changes to this pool of Champions ended up being a bit bigger than initially expected–in no small part due to the fact that some of them are relatively old kits, but also because they’re so beloved by some of the designers. We are thrilled to bring you these updates and hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed making them.

Change Log

Cull Obsidian

• Added: start with 3 Persistent Charges in Battlegrounds and Alliance War fights
  
• Removed Mission 3’s 95% Health threshold requirement
  
• Increased Thanos’ Favor Buff on-hit pause duration from 1 to 2.5 seconds
  
• Swapped Thanos’ Favor Buff effects for 3 and 5 stacks. 3 Thanos’ Favor Buffs now provides True Accuracy and 5 grants Critical Damage Rating
  
• Increased Special Attack 2 Armor Break pause chance from 80% to 100%
  
• Increased Special Attack 2 Armor Break pause duration from 2 to 5 seconds
  

Doctor Voodoo

• Added: While above 1 Bar of Power, Heavy Attack consumes 0.5 Bars to apply a Loa Buff
  
• Reworked Special Attack 2
  • Last hit has 3 independent 65% chances to Nullify a Loa and either gain a Buff or inflict a Debuff, based on combo
    • Even: Voodoo’s attacks gain a 50% chance to Steal 2.5% of his Opponent’s Max Power, gaining 10% of the Power Stolen. Max stacks: 3.
      
    • Odd: Voodoo inflicts a 2% Power Dissolve Debuff for 10 seconds. Max stacks: 3.
      

Anti-Venom

• Added: Personal Passives are paused during Specials and for 5 seconds on Striker activation.
  
• Changed Genetic Memory Debuff application trigger from every 10 hits in either Champion’s Combo Meter to every 10 times either Champion is struck
  
• Changed Klyntar Debuff against Mystic Champions 100% Ability Accuracy Reduction trigger from 30 Combo Meter to while 4 or more of Anti-Venom’s personal Debuffs are active
  
• Changed Special Attack 2 Genetic Memory Debuff consumption from all debuffs to all but the 2 most recent. Furies still gained based on total Genetic Memory Debuff count.
  • Updated Lady Deathstrike Synergy to preserve the three most recent
    
• Removed Signature Ability Debuff potency scaling based on combo, and replaced with:
  • Every time Anti-Venom inflicts a personal Debuff, he inflicts an indefinite 2.5% Exacerbate Passive. Max Stacks: 10.
    • Exacerbate increases the Potency of new non-damaging Debuffs applied to the affected Champion by the listed amount.
      
  • Each personal Exacerbate Passive increases the potency of Anti-Venom’s personal Debuffs by an additional 2.5%.
    

Night Thrasher

• Added: Knocking down the opponent Purifies 1 Debuff on Night Thrasher
  
• Added: Gadget Debuffs paused during all Special Attacks
  
• Increased Gadget Debuff duration from 12 to 15 seconds
  
• Increased Critical Damage Rating provided by each unique Debuff
  
• Increased Special Attack 2’s Precision potency
  
• Increased Special Attack 2’s Precision duration from 10 to 18 seconds
  
• Removed scaling from Signature Ability Taunt application chance. Now always 35% chance per Gadget Debuff
  
• Reduced potency of incoming Night Hawks synergy with Darkhawk to compensate for increased base kit damage output
  

Sabretooth

• Added: Stun Debuffs on the Opponent cannot have their duration reduced
  
• Clarified/Updated: the time required to convert a Fury Buff to a Passive has been shortened from 1.5 seconds to 1.4, but Sabretooth is incorrectly stating this delay is currently only 1 second, so it will read like an extension
  
• Added: start with 5 Passive Furies (Combo-based potency) in Battlegrounds fights
  
• Increased Combo-based Fury duration from 5 to 6 seconds
  
• Added: Once Sabretooth has converted his maximum possible Furies per fight, Combo-based Furies gain 200% duration and 50% potency.
  
• Increased Special Attack Bleed chance from 60% to 80%
  
• Expanded Special Attack 1 Fury conversion trigger from first hit to first and last hit
  
• Added: Special Attack 2 also triggers a Regeneration effect for 10% of missing Health over 15 seconds
  
• Expanded Signature Ability Regeneration trigger from when struck to when struck or when blocking a Critical Hit
  

Viv Vision

• Solar Energy charges are no longer subject to Ability Accuracy
  
• The Special 3 Fury is no longer subject to Ability Accuracy
  
• Bug fix: Her Heavy Attack was only ever dealing extra damage for one Invalidate and now correctly scales to 3