Let's talk about the Life Transfer/Psychic Thorns lane in Variant 5.
Ya_Boi_28
Member Posts: 3,050 ★★★★★
So Today I took my second attempt of cometing V5.3.1. I had decided on the lane in the title and had 2 Team revives and some pots at the ready. I'd gone in last time and flopped pretty hard, but I thought it was just me not playing good enough. I was wrong.
Here is the lane:
While the lane may not seem too bad, it's actually the worst path that I have encountered so far in V5. You may be wondering why and I'm going to explain.
First of all, since this is V5, you are limited to Spider-Verse Heroes, Symbiotes and Mystics. That's fine, I have no problem with that. That limits you to 40 available characters that you can use.
With that out of the way, let me explain my problem. The Linked Nodes are Life Transfer and Psychic Thorns, as I said. Life Transfer is a great node. I have no problem with it. Combined with Psychic Thorns, it becomes more challenging and kinda fun. However, you kinda have to rely on crits so you can outdamage Life transfer degen and Psychic Thorns damage back. That's not too bad.
However, my problem lies with the defenders chosen. The Act 7 Beta cancellation addressed the fact that a node combo can be ruined by a small thing. That's exactly what happened here.
Let's go over the defenders and why I think they are horribly chosen.
Mutant Symbiote: Actually not too bad. He's bleed immune, so SS take a century to get through the fight, but not the worst.
BW: DAAR is a pain. Her evade is stupid and it just makes things worse. Since you can't rely on parry, you end up taking block damage on top of samage you're already taking.
Dormammu: Boy oh boy where do I even start?! On top of the node combo that you'll really want energy damage champs for, you have dorm. Dorm isn't too bad to fight, however, guess what happens if you accidentally dex? DEGEN. On top of life Transfer degen, on top of Psychic Thorns. Horrible design.
Emma: Not too bad of a defender either. However, Life Transfer and emma is a combo I severely underestimated. Let's remind ourselves that Life Transfer heals you based on damage you do, same with Psychic Thorns. Anyone wanna guess the interaction between those nodes when Emma is in diamond form? Reduced damage and reduced healing. So if you don't have an energy damage champ or a very strong armor break champ, you are screwed.
Blade: Straightforward. Annoying, but striaghtforward.
Guillotine 2099: Worse than Dorm and Emma. Horribly designed. Extremely Toxic.
So By the time you get to Chap 3, you've already seen that random breakthrough iceman. If you think that placement is bad, then G2099 would like to have a word with you!
So with G2099, you have to knock her down to disable her digi cloak. Pretty easy. She has a power drain on the Sp1. No biggie. Heal reversal on the the Sp2: Beyond Ridiculous. By iteslf? No. On Life Transfer and Psychic Thorns? Definitely.
Who desgigned that fight? Heal reversal on Life Transfer? That sounds like an actual joke. You can't get to SP2 or SP3. You can't forget to heavy her routinely or you're dead. C'mon man! Even iceman had viable counters. Who exactly are you using for this fight? Unit Man?
I thought that Kabam was going to stop making niche paths and fights everywhere. V5 is great, but paths and fights like these ruin it. I'm not asking for the defenders to be changed, I'm just asking for this type of design to stop. It's not fun and it's not challenging.
Thank you for reading if you did.
Here is the lane:
While the lane may not seem too bad, it's actually the worst path that I have encountered so far in V5. You may be wondering why and I'm going to explain.
First of all, since this is V5, you are limited to Spider-Verse Heroes, Symbiotes and Mystics. That's fine, I have no problem with that. That limits you to 40 available characters that you can use.
With that out of the way, let me explain my problem. The Linked Nodes are Life Transfer and Psychic Thorns, as I said. Life Transfer is a great node. I have no problem with it. Combined with Psychic Thorns, it becomes more challenging and kinda fun. However, you kinda have to rely on crits so you can outdamage Life transfer degen and Psychic Thorns damage back. That's not too bad.
However, my problem lies with the defenders chosen. The Act 7 Beta cancellation addressed the fact that a node combo can be ruined by a small thing. That's exactly what happened here.
Let's go over the defenders and why I think they are horribly chosen.
Mutant Symbiote: Actually not too bad. He's bleed immune, so SS take a century to get through the fight, but not the worst.
BW: DAAR is a pain. Her evade is stupid and it just makes things worse. Since you can't rely on parry, you end up taking block damage on top of samage you're already taking.
Dormammu: Boy oh boy where do I even start?! On top of the node combo that you'll really want energy damage champs for, you have dorm. Dorm isn't too bad to fight, however, guess what happens if you accidentally dex? DEGEN. On top of life Transfer degen, on top of Psychic Thorns. Horrible design.
Emma: Not too bad of a defender either. However, Life Transfer and emma is a combo I severely underestimated. Let's remind ourselves that Life Transfer heals you based on damage you do, same with Psychic Thorns. Anyone wanna guess the interaction between those nodes when Emma is in diamond form? Reduced damage and reduced healing. So if you don't have an energy damage champ or a very strong armor break champ, you are screwed.
Blade: Straightforward. Annoying, but striaghtforward.
Guillotine 2099: Worse than Dorm and Emma. Horribly designed. Extremely Toxic.
So By the time you get to Chap 3, you've already seen that random breakthrough iceman. If you think that placement is bad, then G2099 would like to have a word with you!
So with G2099, you have to knock her down to disable her digi cloak. Pretty easy. She has a power drain on the Sp1. No biggie. Heal reversal on the the Sp2: Beyond Ridiculous. By iteslf? No. On Life Transfer and Psychic Thorns? Definitely.
Who desgigned that fight? Heal reversal on Life Transfer? That sounds like an actual joke. You can't get to SP2 or SP3. You can't forget to heavy her routinely or you're dead. C'mon man! Even iceman had viable counters. Who exactly are you using for this fight? Unit Man?
I thought that Kabam was going to stop making niche paths and fights everywhere. V5 is great, but paths and fights like these ruin it. I'm not asking for the defenders to be changed, I'm just asking for this type of design to stop. It's not fun and it's not challenging.
Thank you for reading if you did.
5
Comments
Died once from my mistake against EF
picked that path because I thought it was the easiest
I believe both new spider men have heavies that don’t get psych I thorns damage
but at any rate, it was the easiest path by far and i left it for last when i explored that quest cause i knew it wouldnt cost a single item.
no need to worry about Guillotine 2099 SP2 if you dont push her that far, pretty simple really.
Using 5* r3/r4 with a relatively low attack rating makes this lane a huge challenge. With low rank champs this lane is definitely hard 😉