The buff that The Hood deserves

With The Hood buff, Kabam didn't grasp the things that made The Hood a good character, making him a worse after the "buff". I present an alternative buff that would have respected the original abilities and expanding & updating them to match 2021 needs.

The Hood has a rotation based on an invisibility phase and a cooldown phase. A skilled player can stay in either one phase and smoothly go from one phase to another. Ideally, you start the fight invisible and play aggressive, making advantage of your increased critical damage rating and ignoring 75% of the armor rating and block proficiency. When awakened and at low sig (sig 40 gives already 50% chance per basic hit), you can drain and steal back the power to build up to SP2, so by the time the cooldown ends, you have two bars of power and can become invisible again. Once you get that machine going, he is very pleasurable to play, only occasionally baiting special attacks during invisibility (non-contact attacks have 90% chance).

The problem with The Hood was that he needed some extra mechanics to smooth this rotation, some extra ways to deal damage and some extra utility. What I didn't expect, was that Kabam would go back to drawing bord and completely change his base mechanics. Hexes, bullets? What was this for? I guess Kabam find a champion in 2021 needs complexity, not simply rotating between two phases. But complexity can go horribly wrong, and so it did.

If I would have buffed The Hood, it would look like this.

His sig ability would give The Hood invisibility at the start of the fight. The rest of the current (or should I say previous) sig ability stays the same: while invisibility is on cooldown, he becomes stun immune and all basic hits have 33,65- 65,04% chance to steal 10% of the opponents current power. To compare: the new sig only gives maximum 45% chance to steal 10% and is only for medium attacks and SP2's, while gaining double the amount of power stolen. On average, you will drain a lot less power this way, making it a clear nerf.

Either by dashing back and holding block for 1.2 seconds (previously it was 1.5 seconds and I agree with Kabam this should lower), by launching an SP2 or by his sig, he gets an invisibility buff of 8 seconds (like currently). However, incoming contact attacks have 60% chance (45% previously) to miss, non-contact have double that chance (so 120%, 90% previously). It is necessary that for non-contact attacks (which are a lot of special attacks), you can safely miss them all, and have a safety margin of 20% in case of ability accuracy reduction. That 90% chance previously was too much a liability to be dependable. But reducing the chance by 20% flat every time he misses, means he wouldn't be able to consistently dodge any non-contact special attack with multiple hits. It's absurd his invisibility was better before the "buff" than after!

However, I would also add that during either special attack, invisibility is paused for the full duration of that special attack. Special attacks take so long these days that invisibility can expire mid-way, making it a pain to dex, or by default dex instinctively. That's not how The Hood should work. It would also give the opportunity to use SP1 while invisible, without the drawback of losing that much time.

But there's more. If any attack that would be a well-timed block misses, The Hood has a 100% chance to inflict a Stun debuff lasting 1 second and will also have 100% chance to deal 1035.45 direct damage instantly, and healing The Hood for an amount of 345.15. If The Hood has the Parry mastery, the Parry activates instead. The Stun debuff is not triggered during a Special Attack.

What does this mean?
1) For regular contact attacks, he can well-time block as usual while invisible. In 40% of the cases, this will trigger Parry as always. In 60% of the cases, it will miss and stun just like the Parry stun, but like Colossus it will deal instant damage and will give you some health.
2) For non-contact attacks, well-timed blocks will always miss and trigger Parry, ergo parry non-contact attacks. That gives him extra utility in some match-ups.
3) This will also count for special attacks, so if you can parry (non-contact) special attacks, you will deal damage to the opponent. This allows for more skill than just standing there and letting the projectiles miss.
4) Typical mutants like Omega Red and Gambit are not immune to it, as the damage is not the result of striking The Hood. The damage is separate from the stun, so also stun immune champions will still get damage. Only by reducing ability accuracy can this be avoided.
5) As 1/3rd of the damage heals The Hood, it adds more reliable sustainability. It's only while invisible, so it's not that OP.

With the Hex mechanic, I think Kabam tried to replicate the Frostbite charges of Iceman. It is not a bad idea, but I would have merged it with the Stagger passives. Critical hits would have a 88% chance to place a stacking passive Hex Charge for 7.5 seconds. Inflicting a Hex Charge refreshes existing Hex Charges, up to 7 Charges. Upon reaching 7 charges, all charges instantly expire. When an opponent gains a buff, that buff and all the buffs triggered the same time are Nullified at the cost of one Hex Charge. When a Hex Charge expires, or is removed by effect, it deals 1380.6 direct damage per charge and per buff Nullified, and heals 345.15 per charge and per buff Nullified. Also, every Hex Charge reduces ability accuracy by 7% additively.

This has some advantages:
1) It doesn't clutter the opponent with one extra icon. With various nodes, it can get crowdy and it is easy to lose track of all the passive effects.
2) Stacking Hex Charges means that consecutive buffs can be nullified, making him a better buff controller.
3) Extra utility from the ability accuracy reduction. It isn't much, but it can make a difference, especially with the Hex passive of the SP2.
4) Hex Charges shouldn't stack infinitely, but neither does it needs to be limited by persistent charges. You should be able to inflict as much Hex Charges during the fight, as long it doesn't exceed 7.

Heavy attacks previously refreshed bleed, shock and Hex passives. The new version only pauses bleed debuffs for 5 seconds and causes all Hexes to expire instantly, with +75% potency. I think we should combine both: refresh all bleed, shock and hex effects and expiring all Hex Charges with +75% potency. This allows controlled bursts of damage and healing, when fighting opponents with little to no buffs.

Special Attack 1 is remarkably the same, and I think it should, with one small adjustment. When the Shock debuff expires, it should also deal 345.15 direct damage and life steal the same amount. But besides for refreshing that Shock debuff, there is no point using the SP1. I suggest that an opponent that has a shock debuff, gets passively Power Stinged, taking 2070.9 direct damage when activating a special attack and healing 345.15. This does not remove the shock debuff. More damage, more healing, more reason to use the SP1 and refresh the shock debuff.

Special Attack 2 should still place a Hex passive that Nullifies all buffs upon activation, prevents future buffs from activating and reduces ability accuracy by 65%. I can't fathom why Kabam removed this ability. Buffs that are triggered from the beginning (like Annihilus cosmic rod or Venom's genetic mutations) cannot be nullified by The Hood. Plus, the Hex passive really helped in match-ups where you need ability accuracy reduction. As Hex Charges reduce ability accuracy by 7% each, you need five charges to fully shutdown the opponent. However, refreshing the Hex passive through the heavy attack means instantly expiring the Hex Charges, so the two are balanced.

I would lengthen the duration to 8 seconds (previously 6.5 seconds) and pause duration during Special Attacks. This way, the Hex passive matches the duration of the invisibility buff. When the Hex passive Nullifies or prevents a buff's activation, it should deal 345.15 direct damage per buff and heals The Hood with the same amount. When the Hex expires, it should deal 2070.9 direct damage (previously 1955.85 energy damage) and heal The Hood for 345.15.

Special Attack 3 is still the same, but I would have added that 33% of the opponent's power is stolen after the special attack, and The Hood gains the same amount. This way, you can safely push the opponent to three bars of power, maximising the amount of damage dealt. At the same time you can recover some power you lost to build back to a SP2 faster.

The current synergy with Ghost gives The Hood invisibility at the start of the fight. As this is moved to the sig ability, I suggest that while invisible and while The Hood is striking the opponent, damage from all sources dealt to The Hood is reduced by 70% to 100%. This increases his utility in a lot of scenarios. I'm not sure about the numbers without making him OP.

The current synergy with Kingpin increases invisibility duration by 25%. It should also increase Hex passive duration by 25%.

These are just my two cents. I think the buff of The Hood could have been better, keeping his solid base utility and adding some extra damage, utility and sustainability to make him playable.