Much-Needed Bishop Improvements

jay_says_hi

So I would REALLY like to see Bishop tweaked to actually improve his usefulness in the game. I think the Kabam team did an outstanding job with the character's animations, but fell a little short in terms of actually making him relevant to the game's current meta. I think a couple small tweaks could dramatically improve him and make him a lot more fun. Here's what I was thinking:

• First, Bishop's ability to purify a bleed by consuming prowess is nice, but should be expanded to include all damage over time debuffs. (This is a perfect opportunity to finally introduce a playable character that can negate degeneration on demand!) Bishop's control over energy shouldn't be limited to closing bleed wounds; it doesn't really make any sense when considering his powers. Bleed, shock, incinerate, coldsnap and degeneration should all be included. The number of prowess charges consumed could vary based on the debuff being purified, but they should all be eligible (e.g. degeneration could cost 3 prowess to purify). This change would add an additional layer of strategy to playing as Bishop. Because damage over time debuffs have the potential to generate power and prowess with each tick–and his energy resistance means he will often take minimal damage from them anyway–against weaker opponents a player may wish to leave a debuff active. Against stronger opponents, though, players could choose to sacrifice their prowess to keep Bishop alive.
• Secondly, Bishop's regeneration in its current form is functionally useless. This could be corrected by making the amount of health regenerated increase based on stored power. (Again, this would make sense based on how the character's abilities actually work!) This would create a nice gameplay mechanic whereby a player would want to store power to buff their regen, but would be unable to keep their regeneration at max capacity because of the damage Bishop begins to take after sitting on 3 full bars of power for too long (his "Power Overload" mechanic could be modified to activate after 6 seconds, so players would have access to maximum regeneration for less time).
• Finally, Bishop has no way to generate prowess against tech champions, which seems a little silly to me. I understand the reasons for having the class advantage mechanics in the game, but this doesn't seem like the best way to disadvantage him, as acquiring and managing prowess is what makes the character fun to play. To correct this, I would recommend either a) removing this limitation and reducing Bishop's regeneration against tech champions to ensure class disadvantage, or b) leaving the limitation intact, but modifying Bishop so that he passively generates prowess over time. Gaining one prowess buff every 4-7 seconds seems like it would be reasonable, and not make the character overpowered in any way or change the fundamentals of how he operates.

Would be happy to hear any thoughts on these modifications. Would this break him or make him too OP? Let me know!

Savio444

Sounds good, first they got to fix his medium which has been broken since the most recent update.

vinniegainz

I mean I honestly have no problem the way he is (do not worry I have him @3/45 and plan to possibly r4 him so I am not bias against not improving him). He is very interactive (aside from broken med attack) and very skillful play with him is very rewarding.

That being said the improvements you suggested are not o.p. at all and would not be game breaking so they would be nice.

Nice suggestions!

jay_says_hi

@vinniegainz Yeah, I really like fighting with him, he's not a bad champion by any stretch (aside from the broken medium attack). I just don't think he challenges any of the current god tier champions for a spot on anyone's roster, and I think Kabam needs to make sure the new champs they introduce are competitive so we don't all get burned out on the Blade and Stark Spider-man show lol.