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My opinion on howard's buff

Nightkiller7312Nightkiller7312 Posts: 269 ★★
edited April 2021 in General Discussion
His damage is fine but still lower then his prebuff but it's reliable to get sp2 suppression debuffs are a disappointment i prefer his sp2 prebuff debuffs his sp3 is now useless armor breaks on heavy is a nice thing overall not a bad buff but i expected better

Comments

  • No_oneukNo_oneuk Posts: 1,430 ★★★★★
    you prefer a 30% chance to get a utility debuff over guarenteed ones? you prefer good damage after 3 straight minutes of fighting to good damage after 1?
  • No_oneukNo_oneuk Posts: 1,430 ★★★★★
    Nightkiller7312 said:

    No_oneuk said:

    you prefer a 30% chance to get a utility debuff over guarenteed ones? you prefer good damage after 3 straight minutes of fighting to good damage after 1?

    With manthing it was 80% and that was pretty good for me
    but you can't rely on it. if you need a power lock, you need a power lock - not a 4 in 5 chance to get a power lock. same for armor break, heal block etc. utility needs to be reliable to place or its not worth anything. if you can't place a heal block on Selective Timestream Kang for one of the heals, he will get to full health. you want to gamble that?
  • No_oneukNo_oneuk Posts: 1,430 ★★★★★
    Nightkiller7312 said:

    And yes a longer ramp up but very rewarding so why i shouldnt prefer that?

    because when do you ever actually do those fights? in 99% of fights in this game, they won't last long enough for his ramp up to take effect. in AQ, AW, EQ, Story, Variant, Arena - you won't see that damage.
  • Colinwhitworth69Colinwhitworth69 Posts: 7,173 ★★★★★
    I like the buff. Mashing is easy, and you can quickly build furies and armor breaks.
  • slackerslacker Posts: 772 ★★★★
    Nightkiller7312 said:

    No_oneuk said:

    you prefer a 30% chance to get a utility debuff over guarenteed ones? you prefer good damage after 3 straight minutes of fighting to good damage after 1?

    With manthing it was 80% and that was pretty good for me
    And you need 3 bars for 4/5 chance RNG debuffs, yeah sure why not
  • CosmicGuardianCosmicGuardian Posts: 408 ★★★
    Nightkiller7312 said:

    No_oneuk said:

    you prefer a 30% chance to get a utility debuff over guarenteed ones? you prefer good damage after 3 straight minutes of fighting to good damage after 1?

    With manthing it was 80% and that was pretty good for me
    While the Man-Thing synergy increased the chance to apply debuffs from the sp2, the debuffs applied were still random. So while there were potentially useful debuffs there like power lock and power drain, there was no guarantee you’d actually get those debuffs.

    I will admit, the suppression debuffs don’t seem overly useful, but at least he has some guaranteed utility in his kit now compared to pre-buff and looks much more fun to play. I plan on taking mine at least to R3, possibly even to R4 or maybe even R5 if I find him useful enough.
  • AleorAleor Posts: 3,053 ★★★★★
    edited April 2021
    No_oneuk said:

    Nightkiller7312 said:

    No_oneuk said:

    you prefer a 30% chance to get a utility debuff over guarenteed ones? you prefer good damage after 3 straight minutes of fighting to good damage after 1?

    With manthing it was 80% and that was pretty good for me
    but you can't rely on it. if you need a power lock, you need a power lock - not a 4 in 5 chance to get a power lock. same for armor break, heal block etc. utility needs to be reliable to place or its not worth anything. if you can't place a heal block on Selective Timestream Kang for one of the heals, he will get to full health. you want to gamble that?
    You can't heal block time stream with debuff, iirc
  • IronGladiator22IronGladiator22 Posts: 1,637 ★★★★
    First of all, sentences please. Second of all, Howard’s full ramp up did used to do more damage, but it was incredibly hard to access
  • BocksaroxBocksarox Posts: 329 ★★★
    Howard post buff is more useful in day-to-day content without the need for synergies. My 6 star will be on my team every month when I tackle the Tech nodes of the monthly Cavalier quest. He is more than JUST a long fight champ.
    Nightkiller, I've seen you all over these forums fighting this fight, but you are in the minority and that is okay! I guarantee you can find some champ to replace what you lost in Howard.
  • CosmicGuardianCosmicGuardian Posts: 408 ★★★
    To address the point of decreased damage, that is true, Howard did lose a fair bit of attack increase. Beforehand, Howard could get 99 stacks of a +259.37 fury, giving him +25,678.62 attack rating. Now, with 50 stacks of a +235.8 fury, he gets +11,790 attack rating. Overall that’s a decrease of about 13,888.62 attack rating at max ramp. However, I don’t know how the new armour breaks affect these numbers but they most likely help to close the gap, if someone who knows how this would change the numbers please let me know as I am genuinely curious.

    While it may be a substantial decrease in the Howard’s maximum attainable damage, it’s still approximately a 500% increase which is still quite helpful, especially since it doesn’t require a synergy to achieve. While the Tigra synergy helped with his ramp up, it was still RNG dependent and it took a while to get him ramped up. As such, he would have only really been effective for really long fights like ROL/LOL/AOL. Now, he ramps up much quicker and easier, making him more usable in other content, such as story content and the monthly event quests. As well, he shouldn’t have to rely on other champions in order to be somewhat useful. That would mean that unless someone has Tigra, they cannot use Howard effectively and therefore he’ll collect dust until they eventually get Tigra.

    The utility Howard now has is a significant increase over the utility he initially had. There are now multiple scenarios where he can be considered an option, such as Diss Track, Vigour, the tech chapter in the cavalier event quest, Emma Frost, and other matchups. Beforehand, he could really only serve as a counter for Havok and Buffed Up, and he wasn’t normally considered for use in those fights anyways. While yes, he will not be very effective in stun immune and limber matchups, every champion needs to have matchups that counters what they can do. It’s an important aspect of designing champs that helps ensure balance in the game.

    Overall, I believe his buff was a positive one that made him more enjoyable and useful to play. The decreased damage output was a fair trade off for better utility and the ability to play the champ on his own without relying on synergies. I tried him out and took my 5* straight to R3 and plan to take him to R4 once I get the materials. Until today, I never would have thought I’d actually rank up Howard, but his buff made him worthy of being ranked up and used in content.
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