**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
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Super-Long Post: My Quest to Master...Red Skull
ESF
Posts: 1,944 ★★★★★
Hi, folks! Hope all is well with everyone!
First: A disclaimer: This post honestly won't be super relevant to a ton of people. It will probably be long, as well. So in the interest of not wasting anyone's time before they go further, I get it: Red Skull has some weaknesses, I could've chosen Quake or Hela to master, so on and so forth.
This post might prove interesting to longtime players who might be looking for a different perspective on playing, challenging themselves. Plus, it's a maintenance night, I already have Killmonger and Yondu, so I am not going hard in either Arena.
So, TL:DR: I am going to try to master Red Skull because you need to be really, really, really good at intercepting in order to play the character as designed, and I need to challenge myself to get better at this game via skill.
You totally don't need to go any further -- the rest is just random insights into the game, the character design of Red Skull, etc. Nothing earth-shattering or important. But if you make it all the way through: thanks for reading!
So, it kind of sucked to realize, truly have it set in, that my skills at playing this game are average.
I am not a terrible player -- I can intercept. I know how to bait. I put in the time to test characters and their synergies, try to understand what the designers intended.
But I would be lying if I said I can intercept consistently. Most importantly, because there are easier characters to play than Quake or Hela, I never make time to improve because I don't like them enough as characters to want to play them to improve.
But as an old player, I have a soft spot for older, classic characters and concepts. I recognize that characters like, say...Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight are newer characters from Marvel, and there is nothing wrong with that. You need new characters and concepts to keep this medium alive -- Red Skull was created about a billion years ago. You can't just keep going back to that well.
But at the same time...if there is a choice between me playing Quake or Red Skull, and learning to play well in order to maximize it, then the way to prompt me to do that is by introducing a classic character that will force me to improve in order to play it.
Red Skull, from what I gather, is not necessarily one of the favorite releases of the year in the community, and to be honest, I can understand why -- the damage isn't quite what others offer, and truthfully, you have to be pretty damn good at intercepting to even get a decent level of damage, AND the character needs to be awakened and at a high sig level, too.
That's a lot of limitations on a character when you can run a Ghost or Corvus or Domino and be done with it. So trust me, I get it.
But it's always bothered me that a character like Star-Lord is only good because of his signature ability. Know what I mean? There's nothing really complicated about the character. You maintain a combo, you get big damage. You can block until chip damage kills you, if you want to.
It isn't wrong to play that way. It just doesn't require much skill. You know?
I have played the game for a really long time, since launch. And while i still enjoy it and try to log in and play daily, I realized lately that as soon as the going gets tough, I always go running back to the same handful of characters that we all know. Every once in awhile I will mess around with Taskmaster, but never when the content is truly challenging.
Never when I have a real chance of losing.
And I kinda asked myself, if the only way I can clear content is with the same 10-12 characters as anyone else, and some of them don't require much skill, then what's the point?
So, it all came together like that.
I have a 4/40 Red Skull, awakened. I found that a Modok/Doctor Octopus Masterminds synergy can increase attack by 12 percent, which makes him hit slightly harder. A Loki/Magneto Masterminds synergy can increase energy damage, as well.
While I still have to do the monthly EQ and won't lie and pretend that I won't use other characters in order to make sure I 100 percent it, my goal is to use my Red Skull villain team to clear every single bit of it that I possibly can, with Red Skull doing as much of the work as possible.
Basically, I am gonna play this character, master it, until I can no longer stand it.
It's time for me to get better as a player, stop relying on my old crutches.
Wish me luck! I am gonna need it -- heavy intercepting is tough! 🙂🙂
First: A disclaimer: This post honestly won't be super relevant to a ton of people. It will probably be long, as well. So in the interest of not wasting anyone's time before they go further, I get it: Red Skull has some weaknesses, I could've chosen Quake or Hela to master, so on and so forth.
This post might prove interesting to longtime players who might be looking for a different perspective on playing, challenging themselves. Plus, it's a maintenance night, I already have Killmonger and Yondu, so I am not going hard in either Arena.
So, TL:DR: I am going to try to master Red Skull because you need to be really, really, really good at intercepting in order to play the character as designed, and I need to challenge myself to get better at this game via skill.
You totally don't need to go any further -- the rest is just random insights into the game, the character design of Red Skull, etc. Nothing earth-shattering or important. But if you make it all the way through: thanks for reading!
So, it kind of sucked to realize, truly have it set in, that my skills at playing this game are average.
I am not a terrible player -- I can intercept. I know how to bait. I put in the time to test characters and their synergies, try to understand what the designers intended.
But I would be lying if I said I can intercept consistently. Most importantly, because there are easier characters to play than Quake or Hela, I never make time to improve because I don't like them enough as characters to want to play them to improve.
But as an old player, I have a soft spot for older, classic characters and concepts. I recognize that characters like, say...Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight are newer characters from Marvel, and there is nothing wrong with that. You need new characters and concepts to keep this medium alive -- Red Skull was created about a billion years ago. You can't just keep going back to that well.
But at the same time...if there is a choice between me playing Quake or Red Skull, and learning to play well in order to maximize it, then the way to prompt me to do that is by introducing a classic character that will force me to improve in order to play it.
Red Skull, from what I gather, is not necessarily one of the favorite releases of the year in the community, and to be honest, I can understand why -- the damage isn't quite what others offer, and truthfully, you have to be pretty damn good at intercepting to even get a decent level of damage, AND the character needs to be awakened and at a high sig level, too.
That's a lot of limitations on a character when you can run a Ghost or Corvus or Domino and be done with it. So trust me, I get it.
But it's always bothered me that a character like Star-Lord is only good because of his signature ability. Know what I mean? There's nothing really complicated about the character. You maintain a combo, you get big damage. You can block until chip damage kills you, if you want to.
It isn't wrong to play that way. It just doesn't require much skill. You know?
I have played the game for a really long time, since launch. And while i still enjoy it and try to log in and play daily, I realized lately that as soon as the going gets tough, I always go running back to the same handful of characters that we all know. Every once in awhile I will mess around with Taskmaster, but never when the content is truly challenging.
Never when I have a real chance of losing.
And I kinda asked myself, if the only way I can clear content is with the same 10-12 characters as anyone else, and some of them don't require much skill, then what's the point?
So, it all came together like that.
I have a 4/40 Red Skull, awakened. I found that a Modok/Doctor Octopus Masterminds synergy can increase attack by 12 percent, which makes him hit slightly harder. A Loki/Magneto Masterminds synergy can increase energy damage, as well.
While I still have to do the monthly EQ and won't lie and pretend that I won't use other characters in order to make sure I 100 percent it, my goal is to use my Red Skull villain team to clear every single bit of it that I possibly can, with Red Skull doing as much of the work as possible.
Basically, I am gonna play this character, master it, until I can no longer stand it.
It's time for me to get better as a player, stop relying on my old crutches.
Wish me luck! I am gonna need it -- heavy intercepting is tough! 🙂🙂
4
Comments
Sorry!
I pulled him as a 5 star, and have been sooo underwhelmed.
I can consistently get 10 armor ups and convert them to shock, then keep the shock applied. The damage is just pitiful.
Maybe you can find something about him that I am missing!
Mine isn’t awakened, I have been interested to see how much power you can gain by stunning with sp1, then charging a heavy during the entire stun. Possibly enough to come close to a chain stun?
Ha! First, thanks for reading all of that!
I have some bad news: At Sig Level 26, the power gain is about 3.84 percent. It's about the same, it feels, as Loki's power gain at about the same sig level. So with that, the stun isn't long enough to chain more than once. Believe me, I tried -- and it would have been sweet.
That being said, maybe there's a better opportunity if he hits that tipping point of 70 levels or so, but I don't know for sure.
One other thing, though: If you can heavy intercept, the shock damage due to the awakened ability does add up. I won't lie and pretend that makes the damage great or even really good, but it is something.
Thanks for reading!
Will do -- and for the record, Red Skull feels a lot like Gambit, as well. He actually probably feels more like Gambit, in charging Prowess, than Hela, because Hela gets more out of charging. Glad you brought that up!
Pfff if only he’d warned us it’d be a long post, I dunno, maybe if he’d put a disclaimer at the start? Oh. Right.