Suggested Champion Touch-ups.
Xenar3
Member Posts: 5
Many characters are simply not as fun to play with as others in Marvel Contest of Champions current state. Kabam has been addressing this somewhat lately, most recently with the Sentry and Luke Cage buffs, and I commend them for that. However, many champions are still lacklustre and could really do with some improvements here and there to improve their overall feel and general role as a champion in MCOC. Champions should not be utter disappointment, especially for newer players; pulling a Colossus as your first 5* in his current state is enough motivation to uninstall/start new accounts for many players. I have done some research into some of the characters I believe could use a touch up to reinforce their niche playstyles and to lessen the massive disappointments I and many others have experienced when pulling these characters from crystals we have saved for weeks or even months to obtain. I think changes to most of these champions are essential for the longevity of MCOC.
Colossus – Endurance should be Colossus’ niche. Add Poison and Incinerate Immunity. I would suggest adding X% armor up and X% enemy armor reduction every X seconds, stacking infinitely, under the name Endurance Charges and Wavering Charges respectively. Just a constant, methodical ramp up as Colossus’ sheer persistence and unwavering strength wears his opponent down over time.
Joe Fixit – Buff Hearts (his regen suit) by at least 50%. Diamonds (damage increase when low) but not enough of a buff to rival Hulks ability, add in increased Critical Damage the lower Joe is but again do not let the overall Diamond suit be stronger than Hulk’s, should be around 25% weaker to compensate for Joe’s extra versatility. Clubs could use a buff to its % Crit Rate, being the ideal suit for confident players. Spades could use a rework of sorts, perhaps reducing Power Gain through concussion application instead of the fatigue/weakness currently in use.
Ant-man – Up his poison damage from Special 2 by 100% or more, make all Special 1 hits have an increased/guaranteed chance to apply Fatigue stacks. Similar to the Luke Cage update, cause Antman’s Fatigues to also lower opponents Power Gain by around 25%.
Kamala Khan – Special 2 needs a long duration stun to help with fury generation on heavy attacks, make all her specials have a decent armor break as well as removing Armor Ups, buff up her Fury percentages a bit, she’ll be ok.
She-Hulk – Just needs numbers tuning in my opinion. Beef up her Citing Precedents all round by a decent amount, increase her heavy damage on stunned targets, increase her chance to stun the bigger the target (should be guaranteed on opponents such as Juggernaut and Hulk) to give her a bit of a niche. Give her a little extra base stats, Hit Points and Attack specifically.
Hulkbuster – Hulkbuster’s mass consistently smashes into the opponent, causing disorientation and giving little room for the opponent to strategize. Add concussion at say 50% reduction (reduces opponent's ability accuracy) on a 60% chance for all medium attacks, stacking up to 2 times. Increase armor break chance to 3*85/4*90/5*95% on Special 1 and give a much larger duration for Special 2 armor reductions, upwards from its current 9 second duration to something like 15 or 20 second duration.
Groot - Needs to be more fun to play as. Pacifism tweaks are needed. Automatically snapping at something like 6 Pacifism stacks instead of the RNG snap mechanic currently in place, and gaining an even larger increase to damage when this snap does happen would be good for the characters theme and fun factor. Also, a successful well-timed block (parry) granting a Pacifism stack would further add to the character’s depth
Cyclops (Blue and Red) Further increase their already high special damage. Give Red X increased special damage the lower his health and slightly buff Blue's power gain at low power levels. Both Cyclops' niche is special damage, it's what makes them fun and as a character is all they really have going for them without a large revamp. It should be among the best of the best and needs a touch up to keep the character in line with newer champions and retain the awesome feeling you get when you blast someone with Cyclops’ beams.
Iron Fist – Make the heavy attack Nullify ANY one debuff, as opposed to its current nullifying of 1 Cruelty, 1 Precision, 1 Fury.
Abomination – Abomination is meant to be stronger than Hulk at base level from what I can gather, but Hulk gets stronger the angrier he gets and the longer the fight goes on. This to me means Abomination should have some of the highest base health and attack in the game, and I think his Signature Ability, Irradiate, should also be applied when Abomination hits an opponent, as that is still contact. His Fury is also incredibly weak, its % should be increased in order to bring him in line with other champions power levels.
Iron Patriot – Special 3 should get a strong Incinerate effect. Special 1 could use a buff to its armor break reduction %, Special 2 needs an increased stun chance. Iron Patriots Sig Ability, Arc Overload, should also gain a powerful Fury effect, increasing his attack by a significant amount when triggered to compensate for the drawbacks he suffers by activating it.
War Machine – Special 1 should gain a 100% chance to Bleed and deal 40% more damage to stunned targets, War Machines Special 2 should also stun for 3 seconds on a 60% chance, and his Signature Ability should be triggered at 25% health and grant even more of an attack buff than it currently does. I believe his medium attacks should also gain a 6% chance to stun for 4 seconds, promoting reactive play with his abilities.
Loki – Needs a longer duration on the Curse debuff applied by his special 3. An additional few seconds could work wonders for the champion, who has a fun playstyle hampered by the short duration of Curse.
Falcon- Falcons niche seems to be his synergies, and they need beefing up to keep him relevant. Also his locked-on mechanic should last up to 5 seconds longer to really bring him up to par with other champions.
Side note: I am attempting to stick to easier to implement changes, mostly numerical or adding already existing abilities with small twists to champions abilities to freshen their gameplay or in some cases bring numbers up to par with others. I understand there will always be champions that are better than others and do not intend to miraculously fix that; it will always be present in a game like this. What I intend for these proposed changes is to instead increase the level of enjoyment players get when playing as these characters; Each champion should feel different and have their own niche or feel to them, but should always keep in line with the characters backstory/history so if I step out of line there please correct me. I am not a huge comic book reader but I have done as much research as I can with my time, any help in this regard is appreciated. Most importantly champions should be FUN to play, and should not be a massive disappointment when pulled.
I welcome all constructive criticism on the changes I have presented for these champions or any ideas for champions I have not covered yet. I intend on covering more Champions that I feel are behind the curve at a later date, perhaps on this post.
Colossus – Endurance should be Colossus’ niche. Add Poison and Incinerate Immunity. I would suggest adding X% armor up and X% enemy armor reduction every X seconds, stacking infinitely, under the name Endurance Charges and Wavering Charges respectively. Just a constant, methodical ramp up as Colossus’ sheer persistence and unwavering strength wears his opponent down over time.
Joe Fixit – Buff Hearts (his regen suit) by at least 50%. Diamonds (damage increase when low) but not enough of a buff to rival Hulks ability, add in increased Critical Damage the lower Joe is but again do not let the overall Diamond suit be stronger than Hulk’s, should be around 25% weaker to compensate for Joe’s extra versatility. Clubs could use a buff to its % Crit Rate, being the ideal suit for confident players. Spades could use a rework of sorts, perhaps reducing Power Gain through concussion application instead of the fatigue/weakness currently in use.
Ant-man – Up his poison damage from Special 2 by 100% or more, make all Special 1 hits have an increased/guaranteed chance to apply Fatigue stacks. Similar to the Luke Cage update, cause Antman’s Fatigues to also lower opponents Power Gain by around 25%.
Kamala Khan – Special 2 needs a long duration stun to help with fury generation on heavy attacks, make all her specials have a decent armor break as well as removing Armor Ups, buff up her Fury percentages a bit, she’ll be ok.
She-Hulk – Just needs numbers tuning in my opinion. Beef up her Citing Precedents all round by a decent amount, increase her heavy damage on stunned targets, increase her chance to stun the bigger the target (should be guaranteed on opponents such as Juggernaut and Hulk) to give her a bit of a niche. Give her a little extra base stats, Hit Points and Attack specifically.
Hulkbuster – Hulkbuster’s mass consistently smashes into the opponent, causing disorientation and giving little room for the opponent to strategize. Add concussion at say 50% reduction (reduces opponent's ability accuracy) on a 60% chance for all medium attacks, stacking up to 2 times. Increase armor break chance to 3*85/4*90/5*95% on Special 1 and give a much larger duration for Special 2 armor reductions, upwards from its current 9 second duration to something like 15 or 20 second duration.
Groot - Needs to be more fun to play as. Pacifism tweaks are needed. Automatically snapping at something like 6 Pacifism stacks instead of the RNG snap mechanic currently in place, and gaining an even larger increase to damage when this snap does happen would be good for the characters theme and fun factor. Also, a successful well-timed block (parry) granting a Pacifism stack would further add to the character’s depth
Cyclops (Blue and Red) Further increase their already high special damage. Give Red X increased special damage the lower his health and slightly buff Blue's power gain at low power levels. Both Cyclops' niche is special damage, it's what makes them fun and as a character is all they really have going for them without a large revamp. It should be among the best of the best and needs a touch up to keep the character in line with newer champions and retain the awesome feeling you get when you blast someone with Cyclops’ beams.
Iron Fist – Make the heavy attack Nullify ANY one debuff, as opposed to its current nullifying of 1 Cruelty, 1 Precision, 1 Fury.
Abomination – Abomination is meant to be stronger than Hulk at base level from what I can gather, but Hulk gets stronger the angrier he gets and the longer the fight goes on. This to me means Abomination should have some of the highest base health and attack in the game, and I think his Signature Ability, Irradiate, should also be applied when Abomination hits an opponent, as that is still contact. His Fury is also incredibly weak, its % should be increased in order to bring him in line with other champions power levels.
Iron Patriot – Special 3 should get a strong Incinerate effect. Special 1 could use a buff to its armor break reduction %, Special 2 needs an increased stun chance. Iron Patriots Sig Ability, Arc Overload, should also gain a powerful Fury effect, increasing his attack by a significant amount when triggered to compensate for the drawbacks he suffers by activating it.
War Machine – Special 1 should gain a 100% chance to Bleed and deal 40% more damage to stunned targets, War Machines Special 2 should also stun for 3 seconds on a 60% chance, and his Signature Ability should be triggered at 25% health and grant even more of an attack buff than it currently does. I believe his medium attacks should also gain a 6% chance to stun for 4 seconds, promoting reactive play with his abilities.
Loki – Needs a longer duration on the Curse debuff applied by his special 3. An additional few seconds could work wonders for the champion, who has a fun playstyle hampered by the short duration of Curse.
Falcon- Falcons niche seems to be his synergies, and they need beefing up to keep him relevant. Also his locked-on mechanic should last up to 5 seconds longer to really bring him up to par with other champions.
Side note: I am attempting to stick to easier to implement changes, mostly numerical or adding already existing abilities with small twists to champions abilities to freshen their gameplay or in some cases bring numbers up to par with others. I understand there will always be champions that are better than others and do not intend to miraculously fix that; it will always be present in a game like this. What I intend for these proposed changes is to instead increase the level of enjoyment players get when playing as these characters; Each champion should feel different and have their own niche or feel to them, but should always keep in line with the characters backstory/history so if I step out of line there please correct me. I am not a huge comic book reader but I have done as much research as I can with my time, any help in this regard is appreciated. Most importantly champions should be FUN to play, and should not be a massive disappointment when pulled.
I welcome all constructive criticism on the changes I have presented for these champions or any ideas for champions I have not covered yet. I intend on covering more Champions that I feel are behind the curve at a later date, perhaps on this post.
8
Comments
On Abomination: Abomination already has the 4th highest attack in the game and his fury boosts his attack by around 50% which is quite good (maybe extended duration). The only thing he actually would need to bump him up is his sig ability giving him a chance to poison when attacking (up to 30% on max sig?)
Loki in particular-with his unique synergies, Loki's already pretty dang good, and Curse really isn't his only thing. You're ragging on very specific things about some characters which is kinda off-putting.
Irradiate working with Abom contacting the opponent as well would honestly make him broken defensively. War Machine as well-100% chance to bleed? Okay, slap him on Unblockable L1 and nobody except bleed immunes can even remotely survive. Champions need to be beatable without nonsense going on-even someone as simple as Luke Cage can beat down a Dormammu on nearly any node but Poison.
Hulkbuster's way overdone. HB's point isn't dealing damage in the first place-it's having one of the most resilient abilities of any Champion. Not every Champion is going to do great damage-some are meant to be used in long, protracted fights. Maybe that playstyle's not for you-don't use Hulkbuster then. I personally enjoy Buster.
Lastly, Antman can't have his Fatigue lower power rate of opponents. That's Exhaustion-Fatigue does not have that effect, but Exhaustion does.