Emma's worth
Nigelthornberry
Member Posts: 458 ★★★
So after doing 7.1 I got her as a 6* 
And I'm not sure wether to rank her up or no, I do feel like she's great but I'm very stacked in the mutant department and she'd just be overshadowed, so is there anything that she'd do better than the likes of aa prof X, mags, Havok, and Colossus? And do you think syn sup is worth r2s with a rank up gem if I already have the 5* at r4
And I'm not sure wether to rank her up or no, I do feel like she's great but I'm very stacked in the mutant department and she'd just be overshadowed, so is there anything that she'd do better than the likes of aa prof X, mags, Havok, and Colossus? And do you think syn sup is worth r2s with a rank up gem if I already have the 5* at r4
5
Comments
If you do that's tour answer. Her synergies with these two make her definetely R2 worthy I think.
An in depth guide to Emma Frost, the mutant utility Queen
Although she’s not as popular as many of the other mutant champions, Emma Frost is still a very powerful member of the mutant class. The level of utility she brings is almost unmatched, very few champions can offer a solution to such a wide variety of content. I personally have a rank two six star and use her extensively in questing and tier 2 wars. As a path 9 player, she’s an essential part of my war team. There’s a lot to cover with her abilities and how it all works, but the first thing to know about is her two forms and what each of them can do for you. Learning how to keep yourself in each of these will be really important to playing her effectively, I’ll explain how to do that later on. A TLDR can be found at the bottom of this guide if you just want to see a list of what Emma can cover.
# Diamond Form
To begin with, Emma will almost always start the fight in Diamond form, there are some exceptions to this occasionally but that will make more sense after we’ve covered how to maintain each form. Diamond form provides Emma Frost with a total of ten different immunities, as far as I know no other champion in the game can have that many at the same time. Granted, you have those that can shrug off debuffs like Ghost, but that’s not the same as having a full immunity to that particular debuff. Emma’s immunities are as follows:
* Poison
* Bleed
* Shock
* Stun
* Incinerate
* Coldsnap
* Frostbite
* Fatigue
* Concussion
* Exhaustion
In addition to these immunities, she also gains a number of other benefits that can allow her to tank a lot more damage than usual, these include:
* 10% chance to perfect block
* \+1718.18 armour rating
* \+370.59 block proficiency
* \+1718.18 physical resistance
* \+2100 critical resistance
* She will also lower the opponent’s critical damage rating by –190.91
\*For reference, all of the above numbers, as well as those used throughout this guide, are taken from a rank two six-star Emma Frost\*
Essentially the overall result of diamond form is that Emma will take significantly less damage than normal and makes her really safe if you just want to keep blocking hits without worrying about dodging and intercepting against opponents with high attack values. Even after all of this, diamond form still has more to offer by giving her some limited power control options. When you use a heavy attack in diamond form, the opponent gains 80% less power than normal and Emma gains an additional 50% more power. It takes three heavy attacks to reach your first bar and the opponent will be close to zero power at that point. If for any reason you’re on a node where you can’t gain power, it’s possible to chain a very large number of heavy attacks when the opponent is against the wall.
Emma can gain prowess passives in both forms, but they work differently for each. In diamond form, you’ll gain one each time you perform a well-timed block which essentially means whenever you parry. The stun isn’t important, so you don’t need to worry about nodes that could prevent that. Diamond form allows you to stack up to five prowess passives at any given time and these last indefinitely. Each one increases special attack damage by 10% for a maximum of 50% Whilst in diamond form.
# Telepath form
Telepath form is the more offensive of two overall. Whilst she no longer has access to the immunities and resistances, telepath form comes with its own set of utility options. One of the best parts is that it allows Emma to completely ignore auto evade effects, whether this is an ability built into the champion or even nodes like mix master. It can be extremely useful against the usual evade champions like the Spider-verse characters or even those like Mordo. Telepath form allows Emma to parry Mordo and safely attack him without the risk of him retaliating with astral evade. Her prowess passives work differently in this form and also have some additional bonuses. Unlike diamond form, she builds up prowess by landing critical hits and each one increases her critical hit rate and damage by 233.33 and 42.86 respectively. The cap for these passives is also increased to ten and fall off if you don’t land another critical hit within seven seconds. If you do land a critical hit, all of the prowess passives are refreshed to the full seven second duration, so it’s quite easy to maintain them when you have five or more, since her critical hit rate at this point is quite high. At ten prowess stacks, her critical hit rate is 3,071.3 which means that you should be seeing a lot of yellow numbers at this point. This number is well above average and can make her viable for unusual nodes such as crit me with your best shot and is particularly useful when facing champions with a lot armour. The reason for this is that critical hits can bypass a lot of that armour rating giving her an easier way to get some damage in.
Heavy attacks in telepath form differ to those used in diamond form. Instead, Emma now has a 60% chance to place a taunt debuff on the opponent, just like Stark Enhanced Spider-Man. Taunt reduces the opponent’s attack rating by 40% and increases the likelihood of them using a special attack by 70%. When dealing with nodes like all or nothing, placing this debuff on the opponent can make it possible for the opponent to throw a SP1 or SP2 rather than holding on for that third bar of power. If at any point you do switch back to diamond form, taunt will be removed from the opponent, which is another reason why it’s important to know how to keep yourself in each one.
# Controlling Telepath and Diamond form
This is one of the most important parts when playing Emma Frost. If you can’t control which form you’re in, you won’t be able to take on nodes where the immunities are important and you could also lose access to her evade counter and taunt mechanics when you really need them. It's all about watching power bars and controlling when and who uses special attacks. You can adjust your playstyle to control when the opponent throws their specials, there are a few little tricks you can use to do this. But before I get into that the simplest way to explain it is like this: to stay in diamond form, you need to use your special attack before the opponent does; to stay in telepath form, avoid using special attacks completely. If you follow that rule, you should be safe most of the time, but understanding why that works is definitely worth learning.
Essentially, the number of power bars each person has is responsible for how she switches form. If at any point, you are a power bar above the opponent, you’ll switch to telepath form. If the opponent is ever a power bar above you, you’ll switch to diamond form. This is why you need to throw your special attacks first to stay in diamond, otherwise you’ll be left with more power than the opponent and forced back to telepath form. It’s hard to understand to begin with but you’ll get the hang of it with practice. It’s important to note that it there doesn’t need to be a full power bar between you, the power bar threshold is what you should be focusing on. Here are a few examples to try and help you understand how this works:
* You have 2 bars of power, the opponent has 1 bar of power (Telepath form)
* You have 0 bars of power, the opponent has 1,2 or 3 bars of power (diamond form)
* You both have one bar of power, but the opponent got that bar before you did (diamond form) If you throw a SP1, you stay in diamond form, if the opponent throws the SP1, you go into telepath form. Nothing changes here until one of you uses a special attack.
**Controlling how the opponent uses special attacks to remain in diamond form:**
* Blocking. Put simply, opponent’s rarely throw special attacks at you when you’re blocking, so one great way to do that is to use a 4-hit combo (MLLL) and rather finishing it off with a fifth hit, block immediately and hold it. The opponent will then hit into your block and attempt a heavy attack giving you an easy opening. Keep in mind that whilst in diamond form, you take so little damage from blocking that it’s almost negligible. You can use that opening to build up your power to one bar to then use that special attack at the end of a combo preventing the opponent from using theirs before you. I’ve never had this method fail me before, despite the fact that the opponent could still throw a special into your block if they wanted to.
* If you’re going to reach a bar of power before the opponent does for any reason, you need to give them power without gaining it yourself. To do that, wait for them to block and then hit into it, you get nothing for doing this, but they’ll gain a bit more power each time you strike their block. Apply the above method by blocking after the fourth hit when they have enough power, so that you can use that heavy opening to land another combo and throw your special attack first.
* NEVER use a heavy attack in diamond form if you want to keep yourself in it. You’ll gain power far faster than the opponent does and end up in telepath form after three heavy attacks.
* If you do accidentally switch to telepath form when facing a biohazard node for example, stop using normal attacks and only use heavy attacks. The opponent will get a bar of power much faster and in far fewer hits, minimising the damage you take whilst the immunities are down. You should never need to do this, but in case of emergency, you should be able to survive easily enough using this method until you can get things back under control again.
* Don’t bring Emma if the opponent will be able to armour break you, when she has an armour break debuff on her she can’t access diamond form, so you won’t be able to use her immunities. Opponents like Man-Thing or Aarkus are ones to watch out for.
Telepath form really is as simple as don’t use special attacks if you want to stay in it, a lot of fights won’t need you to stay in either form, so you can focus on just going for damage instead. It’s worth noting that Emma will always start the fight in diamond form, unless you use a power start one boost in Alliance Wars, be very careful with that if you need the immunities for a fight, that could easily cause a death if you don’t wait for it to expire.
# Special Attacks
Knowing when to use special attacks with Emma is crucial to getting the results you want in a fight since it dictates which form she’s in, as explained above. If you’re looking to get some big damage in, this is where it will come from, especially if you stack up the prowess first. All of her special attacks deal true damage, allowing her to ignore the opponent’s armour rating. Emma will also switch to telepath form for the duration of her special attacks, so they can never be evaded. Be aware that you can have damaging debuffs applied to you through the use of these when facing nodes like biohazard or hazard shift, but the damage is never anything to worry about, you might even heal with willpower. Each of her specials consist of two hits (excluding SP3) so in the worst-case scenario you receive 2 debuffs for a very short duration. After using a special attack, all of Emma’s prowess passives are reset to zero.
SP1- Pretty straightforward, this is the one you’ll use most when you need to stay in diamond form, the damage isn’t amazing, but can crit nicely with a bit of prowess. SP1 inflicts a guaranteed power sting debuff, dealing direct damage to the opponent if they use a special attack before it expires. Could be useful in act 6 where you need to have power sting debuffs on the opponent to avoid a significant damage reduction, such as the one found in Act six, chapter four, quest five. Emma’s kit is well suited to many of the nodes found in this chapter and should be a very useful asset to your team.
SP2- If you want big damage this is the way to go, without suicides I can hit 50-70k damage depending on the circumstances: class relationships, prowess, critical hits etc. If you can build up to ten stacks of prowess before using it, you should see some impressive numbers. On top of dealing big damage, you can use this special attack to inflict a concussion debuff reducing the opponent's ability accuracy by 50%.
SP3- Again, this special attack can have some decent damage with enough stacks of prowess before you use it. It won’t match a SP2 critical hit, but against those with critical resistance this might be the better option, champions like Killmonger and Doctor Doom would be good examples. Furthermore, the opponent will gain 75% less power than normal for 8 seconds after using this attack; the result offers some limited power control options should you feel you need them. Likewise, the SP3 itself generates 75% less power than normal, allowing you to use it when the opponent is above two bars without worrying about a follow up SP3 from the opponent. Between this and her heavy attack abilities in both forms, you should be able to take on champions like Hyperion without too much trouble. I wouldn’t recommend it when large power gain nodes are in play though, since a power control champion would be much more appropriate in that situation. However, it can certainly be helpful when you want to avoid things like limbo triggers.
# Signature ability
Emma doesn’t need her signature ability or synergies to be excellent at what she does, which is one of the many great things about her. It can be helpful though if you make a mistake and might be hit with an attack that can really hurt you. If you’re going to lose more than 15% of your health from a single source, Emma will switch over to diamond form for three seconds in an attempt to reduce that damage. You could potentially shrug off or avoid debuffs in the process, giving you a second chance to recover in a fight. This won’t help you against SP3 attacks though, as diamond form cannot be active when these are used. The other part of her signature ability only benefits her when placed as a defender, as most people are probably aware of already. When she would use a special against an attacker, their controls will be reversed for the duration of that attack and slightly after, so that any punish they attempt to make by dashing in will also be reversed. Her specials are relatively easy to avoid though and many people will be used to dealing with this mechanic. If you ever come across her in a war, check if she’s awakened before you start the fight, I’ve known people to go in expecting reversed controls to then be hit by the special and realise that she isn’t awakened. Always better to be safe than sorry.
# Usefulness in higher tiers of Alliance War
In my Alliance at the moment, we run wars at a tier two level and I rely heavily on Emma for path nine. I switch up my teams often depending on the placements of the opponent, but Emma is always on it every war I play. She can counter the entire path by herself usually unless there are certain defenders there like Man-Thing as I mentioned earlier. In the first section though you have to deal with nodes such as hazard shift, which will inflict either incinerate or poison and alternate which one you need to deal with on a short timer. Poison and incinerate is an unusual combination of immunities but Emma can cover both of them and even ignore coldnsap if iceman is ever placed there. Since she has the ‘defensive’ tag she’s a fantastic attacker for the stubborn defence tactic. It’s easy to stack up destructible charges so that the opponent can’t keep going unstoppable, her ability to tank so much damage in diamond from also makes her a really safe option too. If you’re good enough with light intercepts she can even take down a Korg on mix master, she isn’t the best option for that fight by any means, but she’s certainly viable for it. Stun reflect in section two is nothing to worry about either, as she’s immune to being stunned in diamond form; being parried is never a concern for the same reason. I know there are more common options for attacking on this path such as ghost or red hulk, but I personally would much rather have Emma on my team. Can’t recommend her enough if you struggle with anything on this path.
# Synergies
Emma has four unique synergy bonuses but I never actually use any of them myself. She’s absolutely fine on her own and without her signature ability, but if you use some of these champions often it could definitely be nice to have:
* Sentinel: Emma has an extra 15% damage in diamond form which would be a useful attack increase when you’re trying to make use of her immunities. Sentinel gains an extra 4 physical resistance points per analysis charge in return, adding up to a total of 400 when the analysis is complete. Nothing major, but might lower incoming damage that little bit more than normal.
* Colossus: with this synergy Emma will switch to diamond form when she is in the same bar of power as her opponent. So essentially what this means is, if you’re already at one bar and in telepath form whilst the opponent is below one bar of power, you’ll switch back to diamond form as the opponent crosses that first power bar threshold. It can make it a little easier to keep yourself in diamond form, but you’ll be far better off learning to control that the normal way without the synergy.
* Cyclops (both): Emma will be able to land critical hits through a blocking opponent whilst cyclops will gain an additional 10% power gain.
* Phoenix: This one is quite good, whenever you would gain a prowess passive, she instead gets two of them, allowing her to reach the maximum number of stacks much more quickly. Phoenix no longer consumes fury buffs when overloading, she’ll keep all 11 of them until the overload duration expires, at which point all of them will be removed at once.
# Strong matchups/brief overview of her abilities
* Biohazard, hazard shift, freezer burn and damaging nodes in general. Emma has 10 immunities including awkward ones such as shock, incinerate or coldsnap
* Encroaching stun, stun reflect nodes and champions like Black Panther Civil War. In diamond form Emma cannot be stunned
* Auto evade effects including nodes like mix master, opponent’s will not be able to evade her in telepath form, this includes Mordo
* All or nothing nodes, her taunt debuff can help her bypass these to make the opponent throw SP1 or SP2 instead
* Crit me with your best shot, Emma is capable of reaching very high critical hit rates
* Act 6 Chapter 4, much of Emma's kit will be able to deal with the nodes in this chapter
* Alliance War offence, especially where stubborn is concerned or path 9 in tiers 5 and above
* Tricky specials, diamond form will allow you tank the damage easily by blocking
* Magik, her reduction in power gain and concussion debuff can be used to lower the frequency of her limbo ability
* Opponents with high armour, true damage special attacks and her high critical hit rate can help you bypass it
* Power shield, you can get some huge numbers after building up prowess
* Buffet, Dormammu or situations where having buffs can be problematic. The only buff that Emma can get is the precision buff that comes from the dexterity mastery, making it easy to get through these fights
Hopefully you’ll be able to make use out of this guide if you’re looking for a few tips and tricks with Emma. When I first pulled her, I wasn’t quite sure what to think, but over time I’ve come to realise just how much potential she has and even now I’m surprised at just how versatile this character can be. The level of utility she can offer is almost hard to believe, but I couldn’t be more grateful to own the six-star that I have. Without a doubt one of the most useful champions I’ve acquired yet, I can’t recommend her enough.
Another underrated and little known piece of utility’s with her is that when in diamond form her heavy attack reduces the opponents combat power rate. You also gain a prowess buff when on heavy attack stacking up to 5. I like to parry heavy until 1 bar of power switch to telepath form then aggressively get to 2 bars by which time I’m at 8-10 prowess buffs. When that’s sp2 crits you’ll be very satisfied with the big yellow numbers.
That said, my bar for being happy about 6* pulls is pretty low. If it's usable, I'm happy. Can't be sad about every non-Doom and non-Ghost pull you get.
100% worth ranking OP. Mine is R3 unduped. Over a duped colossus and Prof X
She has great utility and her damage output is ok.