HORSEMAN WOLVERINE! Thoughts & Opinions? ☕️

Wolverine was a champion that at one time was regarded as a top champion in the game, due to his bleeds & completely absurd Regeneration. But that was years ago, & by 2020 this champion was severely outdated in terms of damage output & utility. That is, until Apocalypse showed up & completely reinvented the Mutant Class as we know it. So how good is Wolvie these days as a Horseman? Did he really make a comeback, or is he still sad & outdated? Let's take a look...

⚫︎ BURST DAMAGE
Horseman Wolverine has incredible burst potential. With suicides as a 5/65 5-Star, his regular bleeds tick up to 400, whereas Critical Bleeds tick up to 1360. Wolverines base ability gives him an 80% chance to bleed on each crit, which increases to 100% as a Horseman. Wolvie’s base crit rate sits at 23%, which increases to 53% as a Horseman. The Horseman ability gives Wolvie a chance for his bleeds to be Crit Bleeds based on Crit Rating. In simple terms, Horseman Wolvie has a 53% chance on each hit to bleed, 53% of which will be Crit Bleeds. This gives his DOT burst potential rivaling that of Nick Fury & Archangel.

⚫︎ LONG HAUL DAMAGE
Horseman Wolverines damage output is as incredible for the long haul as much as the burst. Strong enough in fact to finish most RoL fights under 60 hits, & most Labyrinth fights under 200 hits. He’s even able to overpower RoL Wolvies regen with only 1 point in Despair! Constant critical bleeds that can regularly stack up to 10 with good RNG, allowing him to maintain a constant & strong source of DOT.


⚫︎ SURVIVAL & DURABILITY
Wolverine has long been known to undoubtedly hold the greatest base regeneration in the game, making him one of the most durable characters out there. He’s been shown easily going from very little health to a full yellow bar in a matter of seconds. However, this goes to even greater levels as a Horseman, strengthening Wolverines chances to proc Regeneration by an additional 30%. That said, even Wolvies Block Proficiency sits at 65% as a 5/65 5-Star, which is pretty decent. But to this day, his healing is simply unrivaled in the Contest & possibly forever will be.

⚫︎ UTILITIES
Even as a Horseman, Wolverine is very light in utility. He has Bleed Immunity, which is always nice, especially when the debuff still counts for free Willpower healing. He also gains an almost permanent Unblockable against champions that purify debuffs, so this is very nifty… although these matches are obviously pretty rare. Perhaps his greatest piece of utility is his Unstoppable when hit. This gives you a great safety net if you screw up & get yourself combo’d. All in all, Wolvie always has & probably always will be light on utility, but has a few more cool things going on with him as a Horseman.

⚫︎ REQUIRED SYNERGIES OR OTHER SEPARATE NEEDS
In order to be a Horseman, Wolverine of course requires a fully ramped Apocalypse. Requiring Apoc isn’t so bad, but needing him ramped is another matter. You can ramp Apoc in 1 fight when fighting a Mutant, or with his Mr.Sinister/Cable/Kang synergy. He also has great benefits from Omega Red & Havok synergies, as well as White Magnetos pre-fight… but these are certainly not required.


IMPORTANT THINGS TO NOTE:

⚫︎ IS THE SIGNATURE ABILITY REQUIRED?
It's not required for the incredible damage, but for the really spicy Regeneration, it certainly is. And while the damage on Wolverine can get really nutty as a Horseman, I’m willing to bet most are after that super spicy Regen. That said, I would say chances are you definitely want him awakened at a decent Sig Level.

⚫︎ SUICIDES OR NO?
Horseman Wolverine benefits very highly from suicides, taking no bleed damage & very quickly healing back from Recoil. His numbers are also heavily boosted through suicides, having no other way to increase his Attack. Not necessarily a requirement, but Suicides definitely boost this champion's damage to another level.

⚫︎ PRESTIGE?
No. Just no. Horrid prestige, sitting at 8950 as a 5/65 5-Star Sig 200. This puts him in the bottom 5 in the game in prestige.

HONEST OPINION
Horseman Wolverine is an extremely powerful character that deserves recognition, even debatably a Top 5 Mutant. Seriously, he’s that darn good. However, the obvious caveat is him requiring the Horseman ability at all. This also requires Apocalypse being fully ramped, only for him to be brought back down to his pre-ramp state. This sucks because Apoc kind of sucks unramped, but fully ramped, he’s an extremely powerful character that you really want. This puts you in a predicament, in choosing between Wovie or Apoc. All in all, any quest map that has a Mutant near the start, I’m DEFINITELY bringing Wolverine, cause of that easy ramp on Apoc. Outside of that though, it’s tough justifying a 3-man team for 1 champion. Some people don’t mind this, like for Domino or Thing. But for myself personally, those champs are not for me. But all in all, I think Kabam did an amazing job reinventing Wolverine with this ability & I hope to see it more in the future with other champs.