Man Thing buff is sorta a nerf?

Most of the buff I like, but the main issue I have is the removal of contact nullification as an attacker. Maybe I just need to use him more, but without it he sorta feels off. Now the only way to nullify non toxic pustule buffs is only the sp2? I liked turning buffs into toxic pustules and then using the heavy to nullify them, getting double the MD benefit. I feel like the removal of part of his kit as an attacker for a character who was already not that meta relevant was unnecessary, but maybe as I get used to his "buff" he will feel better.

Comments

peixemacaco

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/412053/man-thing-buff-is-sorta-a-nerf

I do have Man Thing R3 and he wins some BG matches as defender

Just a minute, lets see if someone from Kabam answer you 👍

Average_Desi

Yeah, it kind of is annoying.

Squidopus

To me, it’s evidently a change made to make Man-Thing more reliable as a Dark Phoenix answer, where rogue Nullifies against her personal Buffs actually made the fight harder. Man-Thing was actually pretty reliable against her before, albeit slow, because the Poisons prevented her from dealing any Nova Flame damage.

It’s a change that I’m just gonna have to sit with for a bit to decide how much it matters to me. I can see a world where it doesn’t impact fight flow all too much besides making the initial setup take a bit longer; with max MD, 6 Nullifies from a Sp2 gives you back more power than you spent, so once you’re there the fight should be basically all under control. I’d love to test Man-Thing out in BGs to get some better ideas of how it handles, but I gotta wait until the meta changes to something that isn’t so blatantly Mystic-empowering to make some fair assessments.

WednesdayLength

Its to make him more consistent. His buff trigger being random made it hard to rely on and even worked against him in the dark phoenix matchup that he would otherwise be good for. Overall his damage became better generally but specifically even better in high buff matchups where you can focus on just using heavy and

Average_Desi

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2933711#Comment_2933711

How did it work against you?

JackTheSnack

none of the buffs feel great. Korg and Sandman caught my eye but then didn’t live up to the hype

Magrailothos

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2933720#Comment_2933720

In high-buff matches it was useful; but in buff-poor matches, where the opponent might only have intermittent buffs, Nullifying them made it harder to maintain his Agitation.

Then there are cases like Dark Phoenix and Morbius where you want to avoid Nullifying them.

Same for Mister Negative and Overseer, not that they're target matches for him.

Blue_Eyed_Thing

@JackTheSnack I think Emma seems pretty good.

ahmynuts

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2933863#Comment_2933863

she's definitely the best

ItsClobberinTime

This was one of the only buffs I was interested in so I did some testing, I won’t show every single ss cause I took too many lol but this was the average result for a r3 7* no boosts

Pre buff:

Post buff:

I can tell you with full on certainty that this was most definitely a buff, not a huge one but definitely not a nerf. The only thing is Man-Thing’s playstyle is a little different now, previously his whole playstyle was get to sp1 and start the special-heavy loop, nothing else. Now however, you want to throw medium attacks in between and only heavy to nullify your pustule buffs when they’re about to expire because you want that agitation as high as possible, when you get to around 70 he actually starts to hit pretty hard. He’s a lot less reliant on the opponent’s buffs as well as the poison damage now here’s a match with poison immunity

And so this is probably why the nullify on contact was removed on attack it’s really no longer needed because he’s a lot less reliant on poison damage now. Also, keep in mind he got buffed on defense as well so he’s an even more dangerous trap defender now. Overall a decent buff, just gotta adapt your playstyle because the usual playstyle won’t work as well anymore from all the testing I did.

unknown

This content has been removed.

ItsClobberinTime

Did even more testing and the loop not only feels a lot less stressful but definitely way quicker compared to the turtle he used to be, and when there are buffs at the beginning you really don't want to be nullifying them because you want to be able to get your agitation as high as possible with mediums throw two sp1s heavy and fire off sp3 immediately for the big damage so the nullify on contact being gone doesn't really impact him negatively that much

Here's a video I found pretty useful as well, and yes he can take Serpent Dark Phoenix and Hulkling in around 60 secs now

https://youtu.be/vejQbOJKWcU?si=mtfQa6SBIOhLCdsA

I think overall he's probably the second best buff out of all only after Sandman, and definitely one of the few that actually have some meta potential because of ascension.