Star-Lord Stellar Forged Review: A Missed Opportunity

In a subforum chat on Line, I expressed how excited I was for Star-Lord Stellar Forged.

I had saved enough mats to take him to R4 sig 160, but then I watched some CCP creators play him in LoL. The fights were disappointing, taking 2.5 to 3 minutes.

Granted, some creators could use extra IQ points because they were flat out playing the champ wrong.

But if the notable ones weren’t doing well, maybe I shouldn’t rank him up … ?

Nope, fudge it.

And into LoL we went to do some mythbusting. Turns out even more creators could use some IQ points.

The ramp:

The fights:

Thankfully, managed fights in the 1.5 minute range. Which means he is good.

The verdict:

SLSF is extremely fun to play, and he hits like a truck. The problem is that it really looks like the designers tried to get away with the bare minimum. It was pretty obvious to me when I read his kit.

There was a missed opportunity to do a pre-fight ability a-la-Nico. Let me switch from Incinerate to Coldsnap in certain matchups.

And why doesn’t he have any utility? If you’re not going to give him utility, then at least make his Fragility and Incinerate debuffs passive, because against purify champs he does not perform well at all. Try him against Agent Venom and Crossbones, useless.

That’s my summary. To take this champ from an 7/10 to a 9/10, I would just recommend these changes:

1) Add an Elemental Gun pre-fight to switch between Coldsnap and Incinerate

2) Change his Fragility and Incinerate debuffs to passives

I hope Kabam takes this feedback into consideration because they’re two minor changes that can have a major effect on this champion’s viability in the game.

Comments

Herbal_Taxman

He doesn’t have any utility because the first four SF champs probably aren’t intended to be meta relevant. Same construct as the deathless champs. Four mids, then DThanos as our reward.

I’m mystified why people were rushing to rank this champ. But then I remember, marketing works. Especially Kabam’s newly tuned ability to pump champ hype straight through the CCP partners with very little resistance.

Rookiie

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924357#Comment_2924357

Which is a fair argument and only strengthens the need for the 2 points I mentioned at the bottom.

Because he’s going to sink very fast without them.

Giantwalrus56

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924357#Comment_2924357

I agree with this entire response, with 1 exception. It's actually only 3 of the deathless that are mid. Deathless She Hulk is far from mid. Unless you're using the BG brainrot scale of measurement... then yeah, she's kind of mid

Rookiie

What’s the point of releasing chase champions if Kabam is going to make the mid or irrelevant really quickly.

SMH.

I’m already reading comments about people not regretting opting out of the chase.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924361#Comment_2924361

For the deathless they at least had a cool border in fights but we couldn't even get that for the SF champs.

Rookiie

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924363#Comment_2924363

Also true wtf!

$H!T kits and cheapening out on animations, it’s like Kabam don’t want us to chase them.

Anotherconcernplayer

@Rookiie ,

Firstly, repect to you for following your commitment, it clear you done your research, but at the end of the day, it is a game, you might as well as go with your passion and enjoy the game.

Secondly, I'm glad to see a fair review of SF Starlord, from what I seen on YT it seem to be one extreme or another.

I did mess about with STSL and one thing I do get is "fun", he is fun to use. But exactly like you say, he kit as a while seem lacking. If Kabam were really going for a max damage champ then they really could give him a bit weight on his hit (or if not then don't put him as 5/5 damage, maybe 4 or 4.5, Kabam really should do better to manage players expectation.)

I do like your idea of Passive DoT and Prefight, nothinf broken but would just make SFSL a bit more completed.

As we know, Kabam wont tweet (or Rebalance) champ anymore so how they are is what we get 😔, but I can only hope for 2 things:-

Like the Deathless champs, he and other SF champs will have powerful sync
I hope that with the Deathless champs as well, Kabam would consider the same approach as Venom the Duck and relic.

Anyway hope you enjoy SFSL 😊

Herbal_Taxman

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924359#Comment_2924359

Sure, if you want. I hadn’t used DShulk in a year before the first coliseum. Won’t need to use her again until she’s relevant there for another boss that you want to spam their specials. She’s fine, I’m glad to have her but she’s super niche and surpassed by tons of other champs.

My point is, mid is by design for these things. Kabam knows they can build and sustain hype whether these champs have any purpose or not, because everyone will play along on the assumption that SF Doom is going to be great.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924367#Comment_2924367

It's similar to what I was saying in my post about SFSL not being a first edition with this first week he's available.

It reads as a lack of love/passion, and care with these (at least SL so far) champs.

It makes the stellar forge feel like kabam is only doing it because their idea of monetizing these champs with the Eidols failed and they dont really want to do this

Rookiie

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924368#Comment_2924368

Thank you for such a kind and respectful comment!

Rookiie

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2924370#Comment_2924370

Somebody needs to take that last paragraph you wrote and stick it in front of the Kabam community team and let them … think.