hood is underated

I did a full breakdown listing all the utility for all his abilities and it is stacked he has so much when you break it down in depth, firstly I am aware that he doesn`t hit very hard but I prefer utility. Damage can be increased much more easily using boosts,masteries and synergies really easily but aside from a few synergies it is very difficult to add utility to a champ. having high utility but low damage can make the fight long, having low utility but high damage can get you knocked out. so here it is all that hood brings to the table, PS if I missed anything let me know in comments or if their is another champion you wan`t me to breakdown

if this doesn`t convince you he is at least high-demi god nothing will

Hood- breakdown

Signature ability-dark dealings

This only triggers when invisibility is on cooldown and has 2 components
First stun immunity-this is incredibly rare, whilst other champions like annihilus or bishop do have stun immunity it is often under small set of circumstances and time periods which makes it impractical for irritating nodes such as encroaching stun or prevent the stun on power sting expiry, the only other champ to have reliable stun immunity is nick which makes this a rare if niche piece of utility

Second a 33%-65% chance to steal 10% of the opponents power on basic hits, now power control is certainly not as rare a utility it has a few advantages over its competitors, one it is available through basic attacks which makes it easier to access than champs like mephisto or mysterio who require specials to access power control thus incurring recoil, power sting or other detrimental effects from throwing specials, two hood is a mystic champion so this combines well with mystic dispersion for him to gain large quantities of power without using buffs that risk nullification or poisoning from man thing or voodoo. Finally three he has one of the best sig scaling graphs of any champion at base (sig 1) he has half of his sig abilities potency and has an incredibly good return on sigs up till levels 30-40 providing (at sig 40) 51/65 % power steal chance despite only being ⅕ to max sig. Sig scaling graph https://auntm.ai/champions/hood/tier/5

Invisibility
Triggered by dashing back, old block for 1.5 seconds or sp2 (last 8 seconds) this has a lot of benefits
One-incoming contect attacks (basic or special) have a 45% chance to miss, first note this isn't guaranteed like ghost and can take you by surprise as the opponents wiff when you were expecting a parry but can still get an in as the whiffing strike is usually a medium which takes the AI (and you) more frames to recover from. Projectiles have 90% this can be very useful as it limits block damage of annoying specials like punisher or war machines specials and provides a useful alternative to perfect block or high BP champs. Additionally attacks missing as supposed to being blocked means you can punish specials you wouldn't be able to such as war machine sp2 as without contact you don`t get pushed back, beware though that it is 90% not 100% so I recommend blocking over dashing in to get a quick in as you have a 10% chance per strike to get clipped> this also applies to projectile basics such as IMIW or havok and provide a useful alternative to re-parry if you are fighting on stun immune node

Two-big boost to critical damage rating (105%), whilst this does not increase the chance of landing a crit ( so you can get screwed by RNG here) if you do crit the damage boost is much larger than normal, also hood has a significant number of strikes on both his sp1 and sp2 so the chance of you landing a crit on a few of these hits is high. Beware this is largely ineffective against champions with crit resistance like man thing or doom but is still a large boosts to damage output for most of the time

Three-whilst invisible all attacks ignore 75% armour and block proficiency. So first ignoring armour this really strong as it essentially 1/4s the amount of damage mitigation the opponent has making him a useful counter to high base armour champs like colossus if true strike isn`t available, this combined with crit boosts ignoring physical resistance allows him to ignore or avoid a lot of damage mitigation and have significant damage against usually tough defenders. This is also useful against base armour as unlike buffs it can`t be staggered or nullified as it is inbuilt to the champ and difficult to counter

Ignoring BP- this acts as similarly to the secondary effect of incinerate debuffs, whilst most of the time attacking in block without the benefit of CR mechanic can be wasteful this can really come into its own against squishy blockers like cull, and combines well with pyrokinetics in incursions to get decent damage against defensive AIs like mordo is you are struggling to get intervals through punishing specials or heavies

3)critical hits-88% chance to inflict a 10 second stagger. This again is more useful than other methods of buff control for a few reasons. one-Nullify on contact (think BWCV or scarlet witch) can struggle against buffs that modify fighting mechanics like unstoppable as the opponent can usually recover before the nullify has taken effect, and in SW case you are gambling on a crit to be successful.two-Unlike buff immunity it is not a debuff it is a passive effect so it cannot be shrugged or purified. three-stagger guards against future buffs. If a mordo has buff and is blocking unless you can nullify through block you are going to struggle whereas with stagger any buff that would be triggered in the next 10 seconds is immediately and automatically dealt with.four-stagger applies to buffs triggered at the same time (like champion primal fury) whereas a lot of nullification is 1 by one which makes it difficult to deal with a lot of buffs at the same time

Additionally when stagger expires either naturally or when a buff is triggered health is siphoned of the the opponent to hood equivalent to 15% of hoods attack. This is by no means as strong a morningstar or clairvoyant but is nice to pick up a little health as mitigation for block damage or sloppy bane transfers.

Heavy-refreshes any shock hex stagger or bleed on the opponent-let's break these uses down one by one

First-shock and bleed, both of these effects deal damage (either energy or direct) over time, one this can be used to along with invisibility to ignore the mitigation thas high physical resistance or amour champions have by dealing a different type of damage. This can refreshed for nearly unlimited duration as long as you can consistently space heavies making him an interesting option for bleed or shock vulnerability as for most of the fight you can benefit for the damage bonus.

Next-stagger, in most encounters it is not difficult to land crits however if you are fighting against nodes like dulled or high crit resistance champions you may struggle to consistently control buffs as stagger is difficult to re-apply, whilst heavies cannot rectify the struggling to crit consistently refreshing it can allow for it to be active for most of the fight against champs that only proc one or two really problematic buffs such as the deadpool and iron man low health regens which in endgame content where health pools are higher can cause opponents to regain 100,000 hit points or more.

Finally-hex, now hex does 2 things it contains a passive fate seal preventing all buffs from triggering similar to mephisto`s soul imprisonment for 6.5 seconds. This is the stronger and more reliable end of buff control for hood and it again can be refreshed unlimitedly so as long as you know the spacing to heavy counter so you can in theory prevent buffs from ever becoming an issue once you have triggered the the hex and prevent champs like hyperion from ever becoming an issue.

The second effect is a 65% ability accuracy reduction which whilst not the strongest can help to shutdown significant proportions of defensive utility and combined with pacify to mean the opponent have 95% AAR when stunned can really help against irritating defensive mechanics not caused by buffs like limbo or soul leech.

Special 1-shock dealing 130% of attack over 7.5 seconds

First the shock can be used to bypass physical resistance to get extra damage in and is particularly useful against champs like CMM where her ability alow the shock to do really strong damage whilst increasing her binary charge count, however this is energy as supposed to direct damage so is subject to energy resistance like havok or hyperion.

Secondly when the shock expires it inflicts a 0.75s stun. This has a number of uses, the first is a nice alternative to re-parry for champs with projectile based basic hits like annihilus or stealthy as he can place the shock on the opponent to deal damage and provide him with a easy window of opportunity for later if the fight gets out of control, however this does not trigger if the opponent is mid special but more most specials you should be able to get the punish anyway.Alternatively if you are struggling to bait a special and the opponent is only 2.3+ bars of power you can heavy counter to continue dealing DOT and give you more time to bait instead of choosing between wasting an opportunity or eating a special three. This is also useful in the admittedly rare scenario of dealing with unblockable opponents as you often have to choose between waiting out wich can lead to you being stuck in the corner or having to riskily intercept if the AI is playing quite passively, however with the shock you can inflict a stun without parry and get a mutch safer attack opportunity.

Special 2-place a 6.5 second hex and turn invisible

Firstly the invisibility triggered here regardless of cooldown so can be used as a quick trigger if the defender has high block penetration to alleviate a lot of chip damage or on a node such as no retreat where dashing back is punished. This pairs well with high level mystic dispersion as if the opponent has lot of buffs to be prevented through hex the sp2 can be near spammed and the crit damage and armour prevention have very high uptime as well as the chance of missing as a safety net.

Also the invisibility can be used to create whiffs on projectile basics (think yondu or stealthy) to make heavy make heavy refreshing easier.

Final quick points that this attack can be used to create significant distance and prevent the difficulty in fighting a juggernaut or dragon man whilst stuck in the corner

special 3-75% damage boosts per bar of power the opponent has inflict a bleed dealing 130% attack over 6 seconds

Firstly the damage bonus so 75% per bar of power amounts to a massive 225% damage increase at 3 bars . Whilst in most cases getting opponents to sp3s is advisable to say the least of an opponent has just 2 bars of power and no combat power rate modification or power gain buffs an sp3 can be thrown safely for a 150% damage bonus instead. However the sp3 at base doesn't hit very hard so for damage and the utility invisible and hex provide in most scenarios it is more advisable to cycle special 2s unless the bleed is going to massively help such as on a bleed vulnerability node or against a champion like invisible woman.

Secondly the bleed (and all of hoods effects, shock,stagger hex) does not stack so it may be useful to throw once if you are already using heavies frequently such as in the life cycle node to get extra consistent damage.

Overall the sp3 should seldom be used but in situation where power gain is ridiculous (citation 5.3.4 hyperion boss) it can be used as a decent damage and cinematic camazie attack if the opponent is already at 3 bars of power.



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