@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Again - You named a few characters, not every character. Monthly event quest is supposed to be an easy 3 chapter content that mainly focuses on story content. Some fights can be tricky, such as the ikaris in this EQ. Ikaris, is tough but does not need very specific counters. Blade needed specific counters. 206 characters but only 10-20 could beat him without Unit Man.
I wouldn't even go that far to say that 20 could do it, definetely less . Only AA could do it easily, almost effortlessly . If numbers and luck were on your side, other AAR champs such as Domino, duped high sig BW, Taskmaster, Ronin or Psychoman could have a shot too . As mentioned before Sorcerer too but other than AA, downing him had a lot to do with luck because the way the nodes were designed to interact with Blade's abilities. I don't remember the details but it really didn't have much to do with lifecycle itself ( that is well known how to counter) the problem was that due to the nodes, if Blade threw an sp in an inconvenient time ( which happened like 98% of the time) then you were back to square one... or something along the lines of that... don't remember exactly but can look it up for you if you want. Only a 100% AAR champ would completely take luck out of the equation, so that meant a duped 112 sig AA.
The point remains though. Nothing about that Sadistic Blade design changes anything about the point of this thread, it just reinforces it actually.
The blade fight is only a good example of people not understanding and consequently complaining about a relatively simple fight.
He had lifecycle, power alternator, unblockable specials (you and him), that one where you have to keep doing heavy attacks to maintain normal damage and lastly powershield.
The last three nodes all help you as forcing you to do heavy attacks increases the lifecycle grey sheild duration by knocking him down and the unblockable specials makes it easy to hit him while the grey shield is up. It also makes it easy to expend your power before he steals it as you don’t have to be actively in a combo or wait for an opening to connect a special. Lastly all your specials do 400% damage.
So all you had to do was, parry + heavy attacks and ideally spend your unblockable and ideally projectile sp1 as soon as you got it so he couldn’t steal your power and throw his sp2.
There are nearly 100 champs with projectile sp1. You don’t even need that though you can dash forwards and throw a normal sp1 as he is getting up from a heavy, just needed to be a long enough one that the duration outlasts the time taken for the lifecycle shield to go grey. I use this tactic all the time with colossus and OML on that node for eg.
This whole 10 champs, need AA reduction is nonsense. Domino did it well as she has class advantage and a decent projectile special.
The only hard thing once you understand the fight is maybe consistently dexing his sp1 but this was cav eq not master…it’s quite a simple one to deal with.
Agree with pretty much all else you posted though. 👍
Nope, because even if you you had the skill to spam the heavy to bring the lifecycle window up, the fact was that Blade healing from power+ power switch+ Damage only possible with sp + Blade unblockable sp ...meant that if the AI wouldn't cooperate ( as in Blade throwing or not throwing his sp when YOU wanted/needed him to do it) you were pretty much dead. Why is it that you cant see that the whole power switch thingy made it so that the AI needed to be accommodating enough for everything to fall into place, in the very exact right moment you needed it to fall into place, just so you could to beat it, otherwise you were screwed. That is what I mean about luck.
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
Thanks to those of you who continue to provide useful and helpful info. We're definitely talking about it over here!
The bosses of the main path are a bit much. Particularly the health pools, as it takes so long to get them down, and both inflict a lot of hard-to-avoid damage. Korg and Terrax are two of the trickier defenders in the contest, even with counters. Annihilus isn't too easy either, but actually less trouble than the other two.
However, I think it's only fair to point out that whilst I'm not an Endgame player (Thronebreaker player, early Act 7), after multiple attempts, I eventually got solos along the middle path with 5/65s and one 6*R2.
I burned a few +15%/+20% Health/Attack/Champion boosts to do it, but in honesty, is that an excessive cost for a Legendary-level side-quest? No healing potions or revives used, just minor boosts you can pick up for free anywhere. If I can do it (with common, old 5* champs), then it's not out of reach for other Thronebreakers.
Team that worked for me: Super-Skrull: Dr Voodoo (5/65) Korg: Bishop (6* 2/35) Terrax: Dr Voodoo Annihilus: Kingpin (5/65).
I quite like the idea someone mentioned before about providing a special boost to Ikaris/Sersi, if we're going to be forced to take them in. But I'd rather just remove that necessity. We're already forced to fight using them in our Special Objectives. Why make them obligatory in the Side Quest as well?
My biggest issue with this side quest is in order to explore it we're wasting a slot with a champ who isn't even used. What is the purpose of this? I got through all these fights, but might not have if I didn't have R3 SorcSup and SymSup. Would be very challenging without them. That middle lane took over 200 hits on every fight and that was using R3 6* champs.
Then on to the next issue, is the effort worth the rewards? Probably not.
yeh feels a bit redundant.. might as well allow only 2 champs and remove the gates.. i thought bringing in those 3* would give other 2 champs some sort of boosts/synergy... but well. long fights but nothing crazy hard 🤷🏿♂️
Typically I would agree but parry and dex are bad again. Miss about 20% of my parries now. I find the side harder than 7.3 since you get two champs vs 5 for 6 fights.
This continues to be an issue for me. I watched MSD’s video using 1* DP for the Variant bosses and all I could think was how much I’d like my gameplay and frame rate to run as smoothly.
It’s a given that I will get clipped once a fight—either by a failed parry or getting nicked on the edge of my hit box when dashing back. It’s also a given that my block or evade will trigger parry when I don’t want it to (hello, CWBP) or I will block instead of evading at the worst time (ahh, kinetic transference).
I realize it’s hard to get consistency across so many different devices, but that’s all part of it when you put out a Marvel game on iTunes and Google. This isn’t a college project—it’s a multimillion dollar game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect it to work.
It’s frustrating—and I’m done with the Legendary Skrull/Korg/ Terrax/Annihilus path itemless—because it ceases to be enjoyable.
If precision moves aren’t going to be part of the game, and potions are going to be dropped infrequently, then something else needs to give, like smaller health pools, a buff that helps if you bring one of the Eternals or an extra champ slot.
I actually found this week a lot more fun than the last one. Tigra and Doom cleared almost the entire quest by themselves. I only had to bring in another counter for the middle lane.
But that middle lane... The problem with it is that it required entirely other champions than the other opponents (and the boss). Sure, I got down Super-Skrull with Doom at 100% health but it was an incredibly drawn-out fight where I landed on way over 100+ hits (with none taken). Korg and Terrax, meanwhile, just ate potions and revives like there was no tomorrow. Korg was a pretty straightforward fight with Bishop but my man still died in the end, just from attrition. Terrax, meanwhile, was just...bad. It eventually boiled down to another superlong fight where I went into him quickly to get a few armor breaks on me that I could Willpower heal from, then back out again to let his rock field dissipate, and then get a few hits in before having to do it all again. Not necessarily an incredibly difficult fight (even if Terrax is never "easy") but more of a long and really boring slog.
I did, however, actually enjoy the Annihilus fight. I usually don't because he's extremely annoying, but Tigra had a field day with him. If she ever fell, Doom could easily kick down whatever health was left.
But overall? I haven't enjoyed these last two weeks' SQ too much. I've had the right counters for both weeks so it hasn't been a total write-off, but the immense health pools are just so grindy to get through.
@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Fine, Domino could do it ( if you happen to have had the right amount of luck, which fits on my (b) scenario) . Fine, Sorcerer too. But that just further proves my point as well as the point of so many other people who have posted in this thread:
Side quests should NOT have such a degree of specificity. If there is only , say, 5 champs that can viably/consistently beat the content, when the game has 203 champs, that is just simply sadistic design. This is precisely the problem... to design content like this when the game is already making it even more difficult than it was designed to be due to the many bugs that are going on.
Most people didnt even read the node 🤣 and complained about the lifecycle.. both champs had unblockable specials which made it so easyyyy
White magneto prefight makes both korg and annihilus much easier. Korg fight still pretty long. You can do the whole middle lane with sorcerer and wags but I used sym sup on skrull as so fast.
I actually found this week a lot more fun than the last one. Tigra and Doom cleared almost the entire quest by themselves. I only had to bring in another counter for the middle lane.
But that middle lane... The problem with it is that it required entirely other champions than the other opponents (and the boss). Sure, I got down Super-Skrull with Doom at 100% health but it was an incredibly drawn-out fight where I landed on way over 100+ hits (with none taken). Korg and Terrax, meanwhile, just ate potions and revives like there was no tomorrow. Korg was a pretty straightforward fight with Bishop but my man still died in the end, just from attrition. Terrax, meanwhile, was just...bad. It eventually boiled down to another superlong fight where I went into him quickly to get a few armor breaks on me that I could Willpower heal from, then back out again to let his rock field dissipate, and then get a few hits in before having to do it all again. Not necessarily an incredibly difficult fight (even if Terrax is never "easy") but more of a long and really boring slog.
I did, however, actually enjoy the Annihilus fight. I usually don't because he's extremely annoying, but Tigra had a field day with him. If she ever fell, Doom could easily kick down whatever health was left.
But overall? I haven't enjoyed these last two weeks' SQ too much. I've had the right counters for both weeks so it hasn't been a total write-off, but the immense health pools are just so grindy to get through.
I navigated the middle with Doom, Claire and Namor. Claire handled Skrull and Terrax, Namor handled Korg. Boss handled by committee.
Left lane I’m starting over. Clean up to Mojo, then wipeout. Probably should have brought Torch instead of Claire and I certainly didn’t try my 3* Ikaris there.
I refuse to use any items for this even if it means I don’t 100% it.
@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Again - You named a few characters, not every character. Monthly event quest is supposed to be an easy 3 chapter content that mainly focuses on story content. Some fights can be tricky, such as the ikaris in this EQ. Ikaris, is tough but does not need very specific counters. Blade needed specific counters. 206 characters but only 10-20 could beat him without Unit Man.
I wouldn't even go that far to say that 20 could do it, definetely less . Only AA could do it easily, almost effortlessly . If numbers and luck were on your side, other AAR champs such as Domino, duped high sig BW, Taskmaster, Ronin or Psychoman could have a shot too . As mentioned before Sorcerer too but other than AA, downing him had a lot to do with luck because the way the nodes were designed to interact with Blade's abilities. I don't remember the details but it really didn't have much to do with lifecycle itself ( that is well known how to counter) the problem was that due to the nodes, if Blade threw an sp in an inconvenient time ( which happened like 98% of the time) then you were back to square one... or something along the lines of that... don't remember exactly but can look it up for you if you want. Only a 100% AAR champ would completely take luck out of the equation, so that meant a duped 112 sig AA.
The point remains though. Nothing about that Sadistic Blade design changes anything about the point of this thread, it just reinforces it actually.
The blade fight is only a good example of people not understanding and consequently complaining about a relatively simple fight.
He had lifecycle, power alternator, unblockable specials (you and him), that one where you have to keep doing heavy attacks to maintain normal damage and lastly powershield.
The last three nodes all help you as forcing you to do heavy attacks increases the lifecycle grey sheild duration by knocking him down and the unblockable specials makes it easy to hit him while the grey shield is up. It also makes it easy to expend your power before he steals it as you don’t have to be actively in a combo or wait for an opening to connect a special. Lastly all your specials do 400% damage.
So all you had to do was, parry + heavy attacks and ideally spend your unblockable and ideally projectile sp1 as soon as you got it so he couldn’t steal your power and throw his sp2.
There are nearly 100 champs with projectile sp1. You don’t even need that though you can dash forwards and throw a normal sp1 as he is getting up from a heavy, just needed to be a long enough one that the duration outlasts the time taken for the lifecycle shield to go grey. I use this tactic all the time with colossus and OML on that node for eg.
This whole 10 champs, need AA reduction is nonsense. Domino did it well as she has class advantage and a decent projectile special.
The only hard thing once you understand the fight is maybe consistently dexing his sp1 but this was cav eq not master…it’s quite a simple one to deal with.
Agree with pretty much all else you posted though. 👍
Nope, because even if you you had the skill to spam the heavy to bring the lifecycle window up, the fact was that Blade healing from power+ power switch+ Damage only possible with sp + Blade unblockable sp ...meant that if the AI wouldn't cooperate ( as in Blade throwing or not throwing his sp when YOU wanted/needed him to do it) you were pretty much dead. Why is it that you cant see that the whole power switch thingy made it so that the AI needed to be accommodating enough for everything to fall into place, in the very exact right moment you needed it to fall into place, just so you could to beat it, otherwise you were screwed. That is what I mean about luck.
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1. Add parry heavy to that and it's a fairly simple fight. You are making it out as if spamming parry heavy is mammoth task when it isn't. You are making it out as if Blade does nothing but hold block to regen when he doesn't. Unblockable special meant that you could throw YOUR special whenever you wanted to drain your power before power switch meaning it was fairly easy to control your power and the power you give through power switch.
I soloed with Colossus every time. It was one of the better bosses in cav eq as a whole.
My biggest issue with this side quest is in order to explore it we're wasting a slot with a champ who isn't even used. What is the purpose of this? I got through all these fights, but might not have if I didn't have R3 SorcSup and SymSup. Would be very challenging without them. That middle lane took over 200 hits on every fight and that was using R3 6* champs.
Then on to the next issue, is the effort worth the rewards? Probably not.
THAT is another point of discussion!!!!! They didn't have any armor nodes or boosts yet I was hitting like a wet noodle with fully ranked 6* R3 champs. I was like wait .. why is Doctor Doom's medium attacks only doing 272-500 damage and no armor in sight.
It is difficult, so I'll leave it, glad I used the milestone bug to my advantage last week now. Its not the end of the world, I do agree that the side quests should be about enjoyment and a bit of light relief to story and event quests, it's disappointing that they have gone down this route, hopefully everyone will put this point across in the survey currently in the game.
I wish Kabam can go back to their road map that they put out a year or so ago in regards making the game seem less of a chore and more fun and interactive these past few months side quest and now Variant along with the bugs in game has been a total failure. I start playing this game in 2016 and i will admit they did some good things but each time they make 1 step forwards they take 10 steps back and this make it discouraging, each month I'm seeing these Global chats I'm in reduce from 400 players to now 286 because players been quitting and now season 30 starts my alliance has 4 spots open because we lost 4 players in a week, at this rate i would like to see a chart of new players sign up vs players leaving the game because i use to try to get people to play or when i meet someone and they ask hey what's that you're playing it seem fun i would just say bro don't even bother, and truth be told I'm only playing now because i invested 5 years already in this game so i play on a casual level.
I just did this week’s side quest initial clear of the middle lane. My team was Diablo with Loki synergy and White Magneto for Boss, no item was used. The way I see it, it’s an end game content (a mini one) without the rewards. You need to be skilled and have the roster (ranked up of course) to deal with it. Side quests haven’t always been like that if I remember correctly. Several players could enjoy both the content with the rewards. Me personally if the rewards were upped, I wouldn’t mind the difficulty. That way uncollected, cavalier and maybe new TBs might choose the appropriate difficulty they’re comfortable with because the rewards are worth it or good enough. Cos for a lot of players if you don’t go for the highest difficulty, it’s just a waste of time for the rewards if the others. And the highest difficult is a bit much for rewards it offers.
I actually found this week a lot more fun than the last one. Tigra and Doom cleared almost the entire quest by themselves. I only had to bring in another counter for the middle lane.
But that middle lane... The problem with it is that it required entirely other champions than the other opponents (and the boss). Sure, I got down Super-Skrull with Doom at 100% health but it was an incredibly drawn-out fight where I landed on way over 100+ hits (with none taken). Korg and Terrax, meanwhile, just ate potions and revives like there was no tomorrow. Korg was a pretty straightforward fight with Bishop but my man still died in the end, just from attrition. Terrax, meanwhile, was just...bad. It eventually boiled down to another superlong fight where I went into him quickly to get a few armor breaks on me that I could Willpower heal from, then back out again to let his rock field dissipate, and then get a few hits in before having to do it all again. Not necessarily an incredibly difficult fight (even if Terrax is never "easy") but more of a long and really boring slog.
I did, however, actually enjoy the Annihilus fight. I usually don't because he's extremely annoying, but Tigra had a field day with him. If she ever fell, Doom could easily kick down whatever health was left.
But overall? I haven't enjoyed these last two weeks' SQ too much. I've had the right counters for both weeks so it hasn't been a total write-off, but the immense health pools are just so grindy to get through.
I navigated the middle with Doom, Claire and Namor. Claire handled Skrull and Terrax, Namor handled Korg. Boss handled by committee.
Left lane I’m starting over. Clean up to Mojo, then wipeout. Probably should have brought Torch instead of Claire and I certainly didn’t try my 3* Ikaris there.
I refuse to use any items for this even if it means I don’t 100% it.
Dr. Zola
I was thinking of bringing Namor and I kind of regret that I didn't, but then again, I didn't really have space for him. Being able to stun Korg easily is such an important part of defeating him that it was worth taking in Bishop. Unfortunately, he wasn't as good at taking down Terrax as I'd hoped he'd be and I was left without a good counter since I wanted both Doom and Tigra on the team for Annihilus.
And the Ikaris/Sersi requirement is such BS. I don't really care about only having two viable champs, especially since those two lanes were the easiest for me, but it's still just a silly, annoying design. It serves no purpose.
Yeah the increase in difficulty is ridiculous. I get that the whales love difficult quest but why not just add another tier especially for them . Just our throne breaker difficulty and let the rest of us have a game we can actually enjoy like normal people
Well in the end the data has to reflect the sentiment.
Saying something is over the top difficult, but you "did it anyway", will not help the data.
The data will show you did it, and not only did you do it, but you were willing to consume items (if you used items).
It's only when the data shows "X number of people started and quit, or X number didn't even try" will there be backing of the sentiment that something has gotten to be too difficult and Kabam will be motivated to change something.
As is apparent by many of the Kabam Mods responses in the forum, they really don't play the game themselves which means the data has to reflect our sentiment.
Yeah, I'm Cavalier and can barely get through Epic difficulty on this week's. I'm not saying I'm good at the game or anything, but I've cleared Epic difficulty on all other side quests going back to last year when I was just Uncollected, so that should be saying something.
Luckily I had Magneto for the robot quest last week, but this week's is killing me. It seems like everyone who clears it has either BWCV or Doom and I have niether.
I thought it was OK. All very annoying defenders but doable with 5/65. I messed up a couple of times and restarted the path. Ended up not using any revives. Honestly, I wouldn’t touch it. There are four difficulties for a reason. Legendary should have at least cavalier+ level of challenge.
@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Again - You named a few characters, not every character. Monthly event quest is supposed to be an easy 3 chapter content that mainly focuses on story content. Some fights can be tricky, such as the ikaris in this EQ. Ikaris, is tough but does not need very specific counters. Blade needed specific counters. 206 characters but only 10-20 could beat him without Unit Man.
I wouldn't even go that far to say that 20 could do it, definetely less . Only AA could do it easily, almost effortlessly . If numbers and luck were on your side, other AAR champs such as Domino, duped high sig BW, Taskmaster, Ronin or Psychoman could have a shot too . As mentioned before Sorcerer too but other than AA, downing him had a lot to do with luck because the way the nodes were designed to interact with Blade's abilities. I don't remember the details but it really didn't have much to do with lifecycle itself ( that is well known how to counter) the problem was that due to the nodes, if Blade threw an sp in an inconvenient time ( which happened like 98% of the time) then you were back to square one... or something along the lines of that... don't remember exactly but can look it up for you if you want. Only a 100% AAR champ would completely take luck out of the equation, so that meant a duped 112 sig AA.
The point remains though. Nothing about that Sadistic Blade design changes anything about the point of this thread, it just reinforces it actually.
The blade fight is only a good example of people not understanding and consequently complaining about a relatively simple fight.
He had lifecycle, power alternator, unblockable specials (you and him), that one where you have to keep doing heavy attacks to maintain normal damage and lastly powershield.
The last three nodes all help you as forcing you to do heavy attacks increases the lifecycle grey sheild duration by knocking him down and the unblockable specials makes it easy to hit him while the grey shield is up. It also makes it easy to expend your power before he steals it as you don’t have to be actively in a combo or wait for an opening to connect a special. Lastly all your specials do 400% damage.
So all you had to do was, parry + heavy attacks and ideally spend your unblockable and ideally projectile sp1 as soon as you got it so he couldn’t steal your power and throw his sp2.
There are nearly 100 champs with projectile sp1. You don’t even need that though you can dash forwards and throw a normal sp1 as he is getting up from a heavy, just needed to be a long enough one that the duration outlasts the time taken for the lifecycle shield to go grey. I use this tactic all the time with colossus and OML on that node for eg.
This whole 10 champs, need AA reduction is nonsense. Domino did it well as she has class advantage and a decent projectile special.
The only hard thing once you understand the fight is maybe consistently dexing his sp1 but this was cav eq not master…it’s quite a simple one to deal with.
Agree with pretty much all else you posted though. 👍
Nope, because even if you you had the skill to spam the heavy to bring the lifecycle window up, the fact was that Blade healing from power+ power switch+ Damage only possible with sp + Blade unblockable sp ...meant that if the AI wouldn't cooperate ( as in Blade throwing or not throwing his sp when YOU wanted/needed him to do it) you were pretty much dead. Why is it that you cant see that the whole power switch thingy made it so that the AI needed to be accommodating enough for everything to fall into place, in the very exact right moment you needed it to fall into place, just so you could to beat it, otherwise you were screwed. That is what I mean about luck.
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1. Add parry heavy to that and it's a fairly simple fight. You are making it out as if spamming parry heavy is mammoth task when it isn't. You are making it out as if Blade does nothing but hold block to regen when he doesn't. Unblockable special meant that you could throw YOUR special whenever you wanted to drain your power before power switch meaning it was fairly easy to control your power and the power you give through power switch.
I soloed with Colossus every time. It was one of the better bosses in cav eq as a whole.
Nope, and your post just confirms what I have been saying all along. It does so in two major ways:
1- This line " You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1" is key. I tried doing so back them more often than not, Blade WOULDNT THROW HIS SP1 WHEN I NEEDED HIM TO, EVEN IF I DID ALL I COULD TO BAIT IT. That right there is the problem. I'm happy that you had the luck of him biting your bait, but I didn't.
2- You and @Berjibs basically wrote a treatise, a pages long friggin book on how to beat that Blade, AND THAT IN ITSELF IS TELLING TO THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE THREAD. Such intricate/specific fights SHOULD NOT HAPPEN on monthly quests that are not meant to be/considered as Endgame content. By all means Kabam, put these kinds of fights in your Summer of Pains and your Gauntlets (once you fix the current input bugs, that is) but keep them far away from SQ and EQ and other non-endgame content.
@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Again - You named a few characters, not every character. Monthly event quest is supposed to be an easy 3 chapter content that mainly focuses on story content. Some fights can be tricky, such as the ikaris in this EQ. Ikaris, is tough but does not need very specific counters. Blade needed specific counters. 206 characters but only 10-20 could beat him without Unit Man.
I wouldn't even go that far to say that 20 could do it, definetely less . Only AA could do it easily, almost effortlessly . If numbers and luck were on your side, other AAR champs such as Domino, duped high sig BW, Taskmaster, Ronin or Psychoman could have a shot too . As mentioned before Sorcerer too but other than AA, downing him had a lot to do with luck because the way the nodes were designed to interact with Blade's abilities. I don't remember the details but it really didn't have much to do with lifecycle itself ( that is well known how to counter) the problem was that due to the nodes, if Blade threw an sp in an inconvenient time ( which happened like 98% of the time) then you were back to square one... or something along the lines of that... don't remember exactly but can look it up for you if you want. Only a 100% AAR champ would completely take luck out of the equation, so that meant a duped 112 sig AA.
The point remains though. Nothing about that Sadistic Blade design changes anything about the point of this thread, it just reinforces it actually.
The blade fight is only a good example of people not understanding and consequently complaining about a relatively simple fight.
He had lifecycle, power alternator, unblockable specials (you and him), that one where you have to keep doing heavy attacks to maintain normal damage and lastly powershield.
The last three nodes all help you as forcing you to do heavy attacks increases the lifecycle grey sheild duration by knocking him down and the unblockable specials makes it easy to hit him while the grey shield is up. It also makes it easy to expend your power before he steals it as you don’t have to be actively in a combo or wait for an opening to connect a special. Lastly all your specials do 400% damage.
So all you had to do was, parry + heavy attacks and ideally spend your unblockable and ideally projectile sp1 as soon as you got it so he couldn’t steal your power and throw his sp2.
There are nearly 100 champs with projectile sp1. You don’t even need that though you can dash forwards and throw a normal sp1 as he is getting up from a heavy, just needed to be a long enough one that the duration outlasts the time taken for the lifecycle shield to go grey. I use this tactic all the time with colossus and OML on that node for eg.
This whole 10 champs, need AA reduction is nonsense. Domino did it well as she has class advantage and a decent projectile special.
The only hard thing once you understand the fight is maybe consistently dexing his sp1 but this was cav eq not master…it’s quite a simple one to deal with.
Agree with pretty much all else you posted though. 👍
Nope, because even if you you had the skill to spam the heavy to bring the lifecycle window up, the fact was that Blade healing from power+ power switch+ Damage only possible with sp + Blade unblockable sp ...meant that if the AI wouldn't cooperate ( as in Blade throwing or not throwing his sp when YOU wanted/needed him to do it) you were pretty much dead. Why is it that you cant see that the whole power switch thingy made it so that the AI needed to be accommodating enough for everything to fall into place, in the very exact right moment you needed it to fall into place, just so you could to beat it, otherwise you were screwed. That is what I mean about luck.
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1. Add parry heavy to that and it's a fairly simple fight. You are making it out as if spamming parry heavy is mammoth task when it isn't. You are making it out as if Blade does nothing but hold block to regen when he doesn't. Unblockable special meant that you could throw YOUR special whenever you wanted to drain your power before power switch meaning it was fairly easy to control your power and the power you give through power switch.
I soloed with Colossus every time. It was one of the better bosses in cav eq as a whole.
Nope, and your post just confirms what I have been saying all along. It does so in two major ways:
1- This line " You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1" is key. I tried doing so back them more often than not, Blade WOULDNT THROW HIS SP1 WHEN I NEEDED HIM TO, EVEN IF I DID ALL I COULD TO BAIT IT. That right there is the problem. I'm happy that you had the luck of him biting your bait, but I didn't.
2- You and @Berjibs basically wrote a treatise, a pages long friggin book on how to beat that Blade, AND THAT IN ITSELF IS TELLING TO THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE THREAD. Such intricate/specific fights SHOULD NOT HAPPEN on monthly quests that are not meant to be/considered as Endgame content. By all means Kabam, put these kinds of fights in your Summer of Pains and your Gauntlets (once you fix the current input bugs, that is) but keep them far away from SQ and EQ and other non-endgame content.
1) You are extrapolating a special situation of yours and taking it as base. There are plenty of solos of him with champs like Red Hulk using this very method.
2) I wrote a long response to explain how you were wrong about the fight. The core of the fight is pretty simple (heavy sometimes, use sp1, bait sp1). That ain't a pages long book.
I'm one of the people who struggled through SOP and didn't have the roster for many bosses without using revives and even I soloed him with Colossus.
Your only point against this fight is that the AI could be passive which allright, fair enough could happen. However that doesn't mean it's an intricate/specific fight meant only in endgame content. That's like saying Bane is only for endgame content. That's pretty much saying any timer based node shouldn't belong in SQ,EQ and other non-endgame content when it should.
@Ethereality that’s just not true, that blade fight was easy if you understood the nodes. Domino demolished him for eg. Sorcerer too.
Actually thought it was a good fight design myself…
Again - You named a few characters, not every character. Monthly event quest is supposed to be an easy 3 chapter content that mainly focuses on story content. Some fights can be tricky, such as the ikaris in this EQ. Ikaris, is tough but does not need very specific counters. Blade needed specific counters. 206 characters but only 10-20 could beat him without Unit Man.
I wouldn't even go that far to say that 20 could do it, definetely less . Only AA could do it easily, almost effortlessly . If numbers and luck were on your side, other AAR champs such as Domino, duped high sig BW, Taskmaster, Ronin or Psychoman could have a shot too . As mentioned before Sorcerer too but other than AA, downing him had a lot to do with luck because the way the nodes were designed to interact with Blade's abilities. I don't remember the details but it really didn't have much to do with lifecycle itself ( that is well known how to counter) the problem was that due to the nodes, if Blade threw an sp in an inconvenient time ( which happened like 98% of the time) then you were back to square one... or something along the lines of that... don't remember exactly but can look it up for you if you want. Only a 100% AAR champ would completely take luck out of the equation, so that meant a duped 112 sig AA.
The point remains though. Nothing about that Sadistic Blade design changes anything about the point of this thread, it just reinforces it actually.
The blade fight is only a good example of people not understanding and consequently complaining about a relatively simple fight.
He had lifecycle, power alternator, unblockable specials (you and him), that one where you have to keep doing heavy attacks to maintain normal damage and lastly powershield.
The last three nodes all help you as forcing you to do heavy attacks increases the lifecycle grey sheild duration by knocking him down and the unblockable specials makes it easy to hit him while the grey shield is up. It also makes it easy to expend your power before he steals it as you don’t have to be actively in a combo or wait for an opening to connect a special. Lastly all your specials do 400% damage.
So all you had to do was, parry + heavy attacks and ideally spend your unblockable and ideally projectile sp1 as soon as you got it so he couldn’t steal your power and throw his sp2.
There are nearly 100 champs with projectile sp1. You don’t even need that though you can dash forwards and throw a normal sp1 as he is getting up from a heavy, just needed to be a long enough one that the duration outlasts the time taken for the lifecycle shield to go grey. I use this tactic all the time with colossus and OML on that node for eg.
This whole 10 champs, need AA reduction is nonsense. Domino did it well as she has class advantage and a decent projectile special.
The only hard thing once you understand the fight is maybe consistently dexing his sp1 but this was cav eq not master…it’s quite a simple one to deal with.
Agree with pretty much all else you posted though. 👍
Nope, because even if you you had the skill to spam the heavy to bring the lifecycle window up, the fact was that Blade healing from power+ power switch+ Damage only possible with sp + Blade unblockable sp ...meant that if the AI wouldn't cooperate ( as in Blade throwing or not throwing his sp when YOU wanted/needed him to do it) you were pretty much dead. Why is it that you cant see that the whole power switch thingy made it so that the AI needed to be accommodating enough for everything to fall into place, in the very exact right moment you needed it to fall into place, just so you could to beat it, otherwise you were screwed. That is what I mean about luck.
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1. Add parry heavy to that and it's a fairly simple fight. You are making it out as if spamming parry heavy is mammoth task when it isn't. You are making it out as if Blade does nothing but hold block to regen when he doesn't. Unblockable special meant that you could throw YOUR special whenever you wanted to drain your power before power switch meaning it was fairly easy to control your power and the power you give through power switch.
I soloed with Colossus every time. It was one of the better bosses in cav eq as a whole.
Nope, and your post just confirms what I have been saying all along. It does so in two major ways:
1- This line " You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1" is key. I tried doing so back them more often than not, Blade WOULDNT THROW HIS SP1 WHEN I NEEDED HIM TO, EVEN IF I DID ALL I COULD TO BAIT IT. That right there is the problem. I'm happy that you had the luck of him biting your bait, but I didn't.
2- You and @Berjibs basically wrote a treatise, a pages long friggin book on how to beat that Blade, AND THAT IN ITSELF IS TELLING TO THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE THREAD. Such intricate/specific fights SHOULD NOT HAPPEN on monthly quests that are not meant to be/considered as Endgame content. By all means Kabam, put these kinds of fights in your Summer of Pains and your Gauntlets (once you fix the current input bugs, that is) but keep them far away from SQ and EQ and other non-endgame content.
1) You are extrapolating a special situation of yours and taking it as base. There are plenty of solos of him with champs like Red Hulk using this very method.
2) I wrote a long response to explain how you were wrong about the fight. The core of the fight is pretty simple (heavy sometimes, use sp1, bait sp1). That ain't a pages long book.
I'm one of the people who struggled through SOP and didn't have the roster for many bosses without using revives and even I soloed him with Colossus.
Your only point against this fight is that the AI could be passive which allright, fair enough could happen. However that doesn't mean it's an intricate/specific fight meant only in endgame content. That's like saying Bane is only for endgame content. That's pretty much saying any timer based node shouldn't belong in SQ,EQ and other non-endgame content when it should.
Again the same, looking at the big picture and missing the details ( the devil's in the details) that make it so if YOU beat the fight without AA but with Collosus, it was because it so happened that YOU , yes besides having a good skill at playing the game, you also happened to be lucky enough for the stars to perfectly align most of the time you needed them to align.
I'll explain it one more time more in detail and this is really gonna be my last word about, no point on beating the dead horse even further.
Let's take your " The core of the fight is pretty simple (heavy sometimes, use sp1, bait sp1)" line. Yep, sounds simple enough... until you mix in the fact that Blade had Vampiric Immortality, which coupled with that power switch node made it so that you needed for the stars to align for everything to work out. Why you say? Well because you needed him to throw sp1 in order for you to be able to have a sp1 to begin with right, so let's examine that " beat him with a ranged sp1 champ " scenario that you make it sound so easy ( because you are conveniently forgetting Vampiric Immortality):
You push him just to one bar of power , and bait and wait hoping he will throw sp1. But alas, Vampiric Immortality made it so that he would eat up his own power to heal himself, so you only had a few seconds of him being at one bar before he ate some of it and went below one bar, after that couldn't throw an sp1 anymore. Add that to the fact that your "beat him with a ranged sp1 " NEEDED him to throw an sp1 not only on the very small window when he had one bar (before Vampiric Immortality took that away) BUT ALSO THIS NEEDED TO HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME YOU HAD THAT VERY SMALL LIFECYCLE WINDOW OPEN to be able to KO' him. So if the stars didn't align favorably for you, you were either dead or back to square one.
The reason why Sym or BWCV made it all a bit easier was because they could nullify the heal so you had more chances for this to happen before he was healed up, but still the perfect star alignment condition needed to be fulfilled.
Dude, I am genuinely happy for you that his fight didn't give you any headaches, I truly am. But what you are saying about me taking my own experience and extrapolating it as it if was everyone else's experience, well you are doing exactly the same. You are assuming that everyone else happened to have the same amount of luck you had by having the stars aligned exactly when you needed them to be aligned.
And that's the end of the discussion on my end, you may choose to continue it but I wont answer cuz there is no point on me proving my point any further. And the fact that it all adds fuel to the fire of this thread still remains, so there's that.
Comments
Anyway no point on beating on a dead horse. The facts behind the points in this whole thread still remain.
However, I think it's only fair to point out that whilst I'm not an Endgame player (Thronebreaker player, early Act 7), after multiple attempts, I eventually got solos along the middle path with 5/65s and one 6*R2.
I burned a few +15%/+20% Health/Attack/Champion boosts to do it, but in honesty, is that an excessive cost for a Legendary-level side-quest? No healing potions or revives used, just minor boosts you can pick up for free anywhere. If I can do it (with common, old 5* champs), then it's not out of reach for other Thronebreakers.
Team that worked for me:
Super-Skrull: Dr Voodoo (5/65)
Korg: Bishop (6* 2/35)
Terrax: Dr Voodoo
Annihilus: Kingpin (5/65).
I quite like the idea someone mentioned before about providing a special boost to Ikaris/Sersi, if we're going to be forced to take them in. But I'd rather just remove that necessity. We're already forced to fight using them in our Special Objectives. Why make them obligatory in the Side Quest as well?
It’s a given that I will get clipped once a fight—either by a failed parry or getting nicked on the edge of my hit box when dashing back. It’s also a given that my block or evade will trigger parry when I don’t want it to (hello, CWBP) or I will block instead of evading at the worst time (ahh, kinetic transference).
I realize it’s hard to get consistency across so many different devices, but that’s all part of it when you put out a Marvel game on iTunes and Google. This isn’t a college project—it’s a multimillion dollar game. I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect it to work.
It’s frustrating—and I’m done with the Legendary Skrull/Korg/ Terrax/Annihilus path itemless—because it ceases to be enjoyable.
If precision moves aren’t going to be part of the game, and potions are going to be dropped infrequently, then something else needs to give, like smaller health pools, a buff that helps if you bring one of the Eternals or an extra champ slot.
Dr. Zola
But that middle lane... The problem with it is that it required entirely other champions than the other opponents (and the boss). Sure, I got down Super-Skrull with Doom at 100% health but it was an incredibly drawn-out fight where I landed on way over 100+ hits (with none taken). Korg and Terrax, meanwhile, just ate potions and revives like there was no tomorrow. Korg was a pretty straightforward fight with Bishop but my man still died in the end, just from attrition. Terrax, meanwhile, was just...bad. It eventually boiled down to another superlong fight where I went into him quickly to get a few armor breaks on me that I could Willpower heal from, then back out again to let his rock field dissipate, and then get a few hits in before having to do it all again. Not necessarily an incredibly difficult fight (even if Terrax is never "easy") but more of a long and really boring slog.
I did, however, actually enjoy the Annihilus fight. I usually don't because he's extremely annoying, but Tigra had a field day with him. If she ever fell, Doom could easily kick down whatever health was left.
But overall? I haven't enjoyed these last two weeks' SQ too much. I've had the right counters for both weeks so it hasn't been a total write-off, but the immense health pools are just so grindy to get through.
Left lane I’m starting over. Clean up to Mojo, then wipeout. Probably should have brought Torch instead of Claire and I certainly didn’t try my 3* Ikaris there.
I refuse to use any items for this even if it means I don’t 100% it.
Dr. Zola
I soloed with Colossus every time. It was one of the better bosses in cav eq as a whole.
Side quests haven’t always been like that if I remember correctly. Several players could enjoy both the content with the rewards.
Me personally if the rewards were upped, I wouldn’t mind the difficulty. That way uncollected, cavalier and maybe new TBs might choose the appropriate difficulty they’re comfortable with because the rewards are worth it or good enough. Cos for a lot of players if you don’t go for the highest difficulty, it’s just a waste of time for the rewards if the others. And the highest difficult is a bit much for rewards it offers.
And the Ikaris/Sersi requirement is such BS. I don't really care about only having two viable champs, especially since those two lanes were the easiest for me, but it's still just a silly, annoying design. It serves no purpose.
Saying something is over the top difficult, but you "did it anyway", will not help the data.
The data will show you did it, and not only did you do it, but you were willing to consume items (if you used items).
It's only when the data shows "X number of people started and quit, or X number didn't even try" will there be backing of the sentiment that something has gotten to be too difficult and Kabam will be motivated to change something.
As is apparent by many of the Kabam Mods responses in the forum, they really don't play the game themselves which means the data has to reflect our sentiment.
Luckily I had Magneto for the robot quest last week, but this week's is killing me. It seems like everyone who clears it has either BWCV or Doom and I have niether.
1- This line " You are meant to use champions with a preferably hard hitting sp1 and bait Blade's sp1" is key. I tried doing so back them more often than not, Blade WOULDNT THROW HIS SP1 WHEN I NEEDED HIM TO, EVEN IF I DID ALL I COULD TO BAIT IT. That right there is the problem. I'm happy that you had the luck of him biting your bait, but I didn't.
2- You and @Berjibs basically wrote a treatise, a pages long friggin book on how to beat that Blade, AND THAT IN ITSELF IS TELLING TO THE POINT OF THIS WHOLE THREAD. Such intricate/specific fights SHOULD NOT HAPPEN on monthly quests that are not meant to be/considered as Endgame content. By all means Kabam, put these kinds of fights in your Summer of Pains and your Gauntlets (once you fix the current input bugs, that is) but keep them far away from SQ and EQ and other non-endgame content.
2) I wrote a long response to explain how you were wrong about the fight. The core of the fight is pretty simple (heavy sometimes, use sp1, bait sp1). That ain't a pages long book.
I'm one of the people who struggled through SOP and didn't have the roster for many bosses without using revives and even I soloed him with Colossus.
Your only point against this fight is that the AI could be passive which allright, fair enough could happen. However that doesn't mean it's an intricate/specific fight meant only in endgame content. That's like saying Bane is only for endgame content. That's pretty much saying any timer based node shouldn't belong in SQ,EQ and other non-endgame content when it should.
I'll explain it one more time more in detail and this is really gonna be my last word about, no point on beating the dead horse even further.
Let's take your " The core of the fight is pretty simple (heavy sometimes, use sp1, bait sp1)" line. Yep, sounds simple enough... until you mix in the fact that Blade had Vampiric Immortality, which coupled with that power switch node made it so that you needed for the stars to align for everything to work out. Why you say? Well because you needed him to throw sp1 in order for you to be able to have a sp1 to begin with right, so let's examine that " beat him with a ranged sp1 champ " scenario that you make it sound so easy ( because you are conveniently forgetting Vampiric Immortality):
You push him just to one bar of power , and bait and wait hoping he will throw sp1. But alas, Vampiric Immortality made it so that he would eat up his own power to heal himself, so you only had a few seconds of him being at one bar before he ate some of it and went below one bar, after that couldn't throw an sp1 anymore. Add that to the fact that your "beat him with a ranged sp1 " NEEDED him to throw an sp1 not only on the very small window when he had one bar (before Vampiric Immortality took that away) BUT ALSO THIS NEEDED TO HAPPEN AT THE SAME TIME YOU HAD THAT VERY SMALL LIFECYCLE WINDOW OPEN to be able to KO' him. So if the stars didn't align favorably for you, you were either dead or back to square one.
The reason why Sym or BWCV made it all a bit easier was because they could nullify the heal so you had more chances for this to happen before he was healed up, but still the perfect star alignment condition needed to be fulfilled.
Dude, I am genuinely happy for you that his fight didn't give you any headaches, I truly am. But what you are saying about me taking my own experience and extrapolating it as it if was everyone else's experience, well you are doing exactly the same. You are assuming that everyone else happened to have the same amount of luck you had by having the stars aligned exactly when you needed them to be aligned.
And that's the end of the discussion on my end, you may choose to continue it but I wont answer cuz there is no point on me proving my point any further. And the fact that it all adds fuel to the fire of this thread still remains, so there's that.