They Called Me A Madman

...but I did it anyway. Abyss completion, that is. So here’s a ‘little’ review of it.

I actually didn’t think I was going to be doing Abyss any time soon. I didn’t have Aegon, so I figured that was pretty much me out for the count.

Then Brian Grant had to go and do it with Sabretooth.

As soon as I saw his team and the 99 revives, I knew I was going to do it. I had already gotten 4* Sasquatch from his featured arena just in case Sabretooth did indeed turn out to be a viable option. Yes, I did take a 4* to Abyss.

So my team ended up being:
6* R2 Sabretooth
4* R5 Sasquatch
5* R5 Symbiote Supreme
5* R5 Void
5* R5 Corvus

I made one change from BG’s team. I switched out Killmonger for Symbiote Supreme, even though I have a R3 6* Killmonger. My logic was that he seemed to really struggle with the cosmic fights using Sabretooth, and Killmonger wasn’t essential. In hindsight, I’m glad I did switch it out.

I went into the Abyss with around 50 revives in the stash( I’m not exactly sure how many I had), 200 free crystals, and 5300 units. I’m going to spoil what I spent right now. I completed the entire path without using units and got Collector down to 69% on my free crystals and what was left of my stashed revives. So the path probably cost around 60 revives, give or take a few. The rest of the collector cost around 1k units using Corvus.

All in all, I probably used around 100 revives. Which I think is a pretty alright outcome considering.

As for the fights themselves, it’s probably best to give a summary of them individually, although I will say it was much easier generally than I thought it would be.

Thing: I just used this fight to ramp up Sabretooth, got him to 22 furies. The ramp-up on Sabretooth was a lot more stressful than I anticipated, what with the random evades, managing his unstoppable, spacing, my combo meter.

Omega: Also used this fight to ramp up Sabretooth, got him to his 30 furies. Easy peasy

Quake: Sabretooth tore her apart. It was at this point I realised just how good Sabretooth was going to be for this. 2 Revives used I think.
Medusa: Symbiote Supreme massacred her in revive. It was at this point I knew I’d made the right choice bringing Symbiote Supreme over Killmonger

Mephisto: This is the fight Void was essential for and my god was it painful. My Torch isn’t awakened and I didn’t want to risk it, but if your Torch is awakened bring him because this is a loooong fight. I mean, geez, this actually made me hate Void. 3 or 4 revives. Could probably be done in less

Captain Marvel: Two shot with Symbiote Supreme. Nothing too difficult after her fix.

Ghost: First proper fight with Corvus. Had finished Omega with him for the first charge, but this still wasn’t a fun fight. Took a few revives and a lot of stress.

Iron Man: I hated this fight. Truly. The block damage even using reparry felt hefty because it lasted so long. Used Corvus, got the last of my charges. Was pretty costly, probably in the region of 6-8 revives

Joe Fixit: My intention was to use Void for this fight like BG, but even when I was reversing the regen it was still taking forever. Probably because I don’t have despair. Ended up just beating him down with Sabretooth easily. 2 revives. Took a 2-hour break after this fight to spend time with family.

Mordo: This fight sucked. Sort of. I was updating my friend as I went, and he advised me to go Void for safety. So I took in void, got down 25% in one run and about half a lifetime. At that point, I went screw it, took in Sabretooth, risked it, took off about 60% in one run. Should have gone with him from the start. The evade in that fight is awful. Seriously, the abyss evade should not trigger astral evade, it feels super cheap and underhanded, especially when he stuns you off of it.

Venom The Duck: This should have been a one-shot with Symbiote Supreme. Except the fight got really, really buggy. Seriously. I was only triggering one blessing from my SP3, one type of his buffs wasn’t being nullified, I had phantom bleeds on me at one point that did no damage, didn’t give me a willpower heal, it was really weird. This fight wasn’t even a two-shot. Why? Because I died taking this screenshot for you all to show just how bugged this fight was.

Not fun

Howard The Duck: I hate this fight. Even more than the Collector. No, I’m not joking. Void was just not a viable option here, for more than one reason, which I’ll get into, but I ended up using Sabretooth. The class disadvantage in the abyss is f***ing awful. Oh my god, I think I took 10 years off my life watching him evade one of the last 2 hits of my heavy. Because they land outside of the stun he can evade them, but you need to throw them, but you also can’t die before you reach your first SP3 and I hate it. Especially when he hits the second set of skirmish charges, then it's about 3000 damage on a parry, so you actually just have to play against a champion that has a 20% chance to evade and is throwing random heavies.

Somehow, I didn’t lose a single charge on Sabretooth here and I’m not exactly sure how. Now to tackle why I didn’t use Void. First of all, I was really impatient and tired. It was about 1 am here in Scotland at this point. Secondly, the first time I used Void in this fight, it bugged out. My Fear Of The Void didn’t activate. At all. It was awful, I was doing basically 0 damage. I don’t know what caused it, but it utterly decimated any chance Void had at doing this fight. But I did take him in again to try and reverse the healing at 60%. Fear Of The Void activated this time but he triggered Thunderquack.

At that point, I said f*** it and just went Sabretooth.

Hyperion: This was a breath of fresh air after the last two buggy and awful fights. Two-shot with Symbiote Supreme.

The Champion: Same story as Hyperion to a tee. Except I couldn’t help getting in as many SP1 dexes as I could. Old habits die hard I guess. Don’t lie, if you’ve done this fight, you did it too.

Cyclops: I did 1 practice duel with my 3* Guardian to get the special parry timing down here. Got it down within that duel. 3 shot with Sabretooth, didn’t mess up a single dex or parry. I did get killed by a random heavy he threw while I dashed in at him from across the screen, so that was really fun. Quite enjoyed this fight though.

Loki: This is a really stressful fight with Sabretooth since you aren’t going to get your persistent charge until at least the second set of Skirmish charges due to the constant power drain. So you’re absolutely at the mercy of the abyss evade. But it was a 2 shot with Sabretooth without losing a charge, so I was happy.

Aegon: One-shot with Sym Supreme. At this point, I never want to see his SP3 ever again, I must have watched it over 100 times during this run. That’s not an exaggeration.

Invisible Woman: I’m not entirely sure what happened in this fight. Um, it was a 2 shot with Sabretooth, I know that. But because you need to get to your SP3 with Sabretooth, you can’t throw your SP3 to remove the power stings or place the bleeds. And I couldn’t parry at the right time to save my life. So both runs I basically just got stun locked and hit until I got my SP3, got out of the stun-lock eventually, threw it off, then just spammed SP1’s, healed the power sting damage with Willpower and got off 60% in the first run, the rest the second run.

An unconventional way to do a fight. But it worked soooo...getting hit for the win?

Cull Obsidian: Hardest fight in the entire Abyss by a country mile, I mean how are you ever meant to beat this guy? 200 revives used, worst fight in the game. Get the nerf hammer out, I want rank down tickets and compensation.

The Unit Collector: Oh you wanted a fair fight?


{Insert James Jonah Jameson laughing here}

This fight is absolute bull****. But you knew that already, everyone knows it, Kabam knows it. That’s why it exists. Em, as I mentioned, got him to 69% on my stashed revives. Then it was chuck on suicides, full boosters and Corvus this b*****d. I was lucky to get down 5% a run.

Once he gets to the 20% range, you start to see 1% as an absolute win. I actually got into a nice little rhythm at this point. Bait a heavy, hit him once, he goes unstoppable, bait the SP1, eat it in your block, punish with a full combo. If he doesn’t evade you, he’ll go unstoppable on your next hit. Rinse and repeat until you die. Which is going to be after the 4th combo in reality. Rarely get to your SP1.

And then it was done. It might have been 5 am, but it was done. Shoutout to Polaris, Architects, Paramore, I Prevail, My Chemical Romance, Rise Against, Dream State and Stand Atlantic for being my emotional support throughout the run. There were some moments I’m...less than proud of.

Overall, the abyss was not as bad as I thought it would be. Don’t get me wrong, it was bad, and you absolutely should not do it without Aegon. But it also wasn’t as costly as I thought it would be, I was happy to finish with 2000 units left, but I had over 4000 left, so that was amazing. Ready for Variant 5 and Summer of Pain now.

But was it worth it?

Well, my rewards would scream no. I had been saving all, and I mean all, my crystals for about a month.

So, from my 5* Nexus my best option was awakening Mysterio. Which is alright I guess, he’s at R4 but I don’t use him. Got a first time Moon Knight from the 5* basic you get. Opened 9 Science/Mystic 5* crystals. Here are my pulls in order:

Sig 60 Hood
Sorceror Supreme
Jane Foster
Red Hulk awakening
Ebony Maw awakening
Modok
Sig 80 Captain America Classic
Modok Awakening
Sig 120 Doctor Voodoo

So it was pretty tragic overall. Sorcerer Supreme is an amazing pull, and she is going to R5 as soon as I get the T4CC. However, I was desperately searching for Quake. Which is what makes this all the more painful than it does at first glance. Thankfully, I recorded my entire opening (which I could post on Youtube if anyone is interested in that. Let me know). So I isolated the clip, turned it into a gif, and now you can experience my pain in real-time.

So that hurt. That really f***ing hurt. I actually celebrated. Then it rolled to Modok and I’m not joking, I haven’t felt such crushing disappointment since my 5th-year exam results.

But I had 5 6*’s as well to try and redeem it. They...sort of did, not really, but I like to delude myself that they did. In order:

Dormammu
Mordo
Nova
Gambit awakening
Colossus awakening

So with the buff roadmap, maybe these champs are going to get a decent bit better. We already know Gambit is getting buffed, so I’m now eagerly anticipating that.

Colossus is great, but I have the maxed 5*, so until I can take him to R3, he’s not that helpful. Even then, I need to decide between him and Sunspot.

Now for the big guns. The T5CC and the awakening gem.

I got Cosmic from the T5CC, which I have no use for. If my Proxima was duped I would take her up, but until I pull either a duped Corvus, Duped Captain Marvel Movie, or a Venom, it’s a-gonna sit there
The awakening gem does pose a decision. I got skill. My only R3 right now is Killmonger, unduped. I’m considering maybe using it on him, but I don’t have many sigs. God knows when I’ll pull and Aegon, Stealthy or Fury. Would interested to hear opinions on this.

But yeah, the abyss is completed. I won’t be touching exploration until I get and Aegon, but if I do, I probably will.

In the meantime, I’m going to continue my search for Quake, and of course, I want to thank you for reading what is basically an anthology at this point. ‘Til Variant 5 I guess.