Captain America (Sam Wilson) vs Red Magneto Test

Sorry for the wall of text. If you want to skip reading it all, there's a "Conclusion" section at the end.

Intro

After asking on the forum about somewhere to test my newly ranked-up Sam Wilson (r2, unduped), I went into 7.3 to try him out against a tricky boss. The tricky boss in question was Old Man Logan in 7.3.2.

For those who don't keep track of every boss's nodes, his are:

* Arrogance
* Bubble Shield
* Lazarus
* Lionheart
* Return Policy - 3

The two first ones are the ones of importance here. Arrogance places a falter passive on you every 10 hits while Bubble Shield decreases your block proficiency with every block until the opponent eventually goes unblockable. Sam should counter both of those nodes.

Sam Wilson

The results were...interesting. His Recon Scan does counter Arrogance while his Bulwark buff counters Bubble Shield. However, neither is permanent. Both abilities are timed and you must remember to refresh them/that they have a cooldown, otherwise you'll get smacked hard.

I got smacked hard. Oops.

This is probably something you'll get used to as you play him. After all, this was my first proper fight using him outside of Realm of Legends Winter Soldier. One of the main problems was that I forgot about the Bulwark buff since it has a pretty long duration to begin with and then refreshes on heavy attacks and intercepts, so when it eventually did fall off I wasn't prepared for the unblockable attack. Even when I did refresh it, there tended to sneak in one Bubble Shield charge here and there which meant that OML, eventually, became unblockable anyway.

However, his Recon Scan worked like a charm. You do have to keep an eye on it and it has a longer cooldown than OG Falcon's Recon Scan (which was slightly annoying in situations like these where you constantly needed it), but it largely served its purpose just like it should. It's always a delight to see those "miss failed" messages pop up as you attack.

Red Magneto

What's interesting is that I was told that Red Magneto is probably the better alternative for the fight. Since I still had to explore that quest, I decided to put that assumption to the test and bring in both champions the next time I went up against Old Man Logan.

Some things to note: Old Man Logan is immune to ability accuracy modification. As such, goodbye -70% AAR despite him being #metal. Due to that, Magneto couldn't shut down Bubble Shield. Since he relies on parrying, well, that could be a problem. Moreover, Old Man Logan has 95% bleed resistance while he has a regeneration buff active. If you're going to nuke him down with an SP3, you have to lure out a special attack from him so that he converts his regen into a fury.

All in all, it wasn't the prettiest of fights. I was afraid to parry too much so things became somewhat haphazard since I'm not too familiar with playing Mags without parry-heavying my opponents. However, Mags completely bypassed Arrogance since he can't miss against #metal champs. It's why I love you, Mags.

Eventually his ability to completely shut down #metal champs' regeneration proved immensely useful against the Lazarus node which heals defenders up to 20% health when they would be knocked out unless you've hit them enough times to remove those Lazarus charges. Mags just denied that healing altogether and a final tap knocked OML out.

Conclusion

It was an interesting comparison to make. I'm much more comfortable with Mags since I've used him for years but some of the nodes tricked him (and me) up. Meanwhile, Sam played around the nodes much better despite me being such a n00b in terms of playing him.

In the end, I think it's fair to say that Sam had a clear upper hand when it came to the majority of the fight. Mags completely denied the Lazarus node from even triggering so he ended the fight nicely, but he did have quite a few problems during it. Not only did he have a hard time building up his prowess in peace due to Bubble Shield, his SP3 didn't nuke OML off as I had hoped. Despite making sure his regen was off, Mags' bleeds also didn't do quite enough damage to end the fight then and there. As such, I had to struggle with Bubble Shield again.

Sam, meanwhile, felt relatively safe. Surprisingly, he felt fairly quick as well. I did not anticipate that after some of my early testing in ROL. I wouldn't by any mean say that he was Cosmic Ghost Rider-fast - it's no secret that he's no damage god - but he did get the job done in a fairly speedy manner. If he had been duped and inflicted ruptures every time OML's misses failed or Bubble Shield failed to trigger due to his Bulwark buff, things would likely have ended quite a bit faster yet. If they had, maybe I wouldn't have had as much time to make my rookie mistakes as I did without the dupe.

I can't say that either champion performed flawlessly, and that's in no small part to me. However, I do think there's potential for Sam to perform better. Had OML not had that one line in his kit about being immune to AAR, things would likely have been different and Mags would have smoked him. However, he does so Mags didn't.

I strongly suspect that I'll take Sam to r3 eventually. Maybe even as my next tech r3. Hopefully I can dupe him from the featured and pump some sig stones into him, after which I think he would be an obvious r3 candidate. I really liked what I saw.

Comments

PapaMidnite007

Sam does have some uses

TheBair123

How do you think he compares to the original Falcon? Great write up, it’s an interesting comparison

Thebombsquad1

Sam is basically tech magneto

Ercarret

How do you think he compares to the original Falcon? Great write up, it’s an interesting comparison

The original Falcon has, basically, one great utility. He shuts down all kinds of things that happen when you hit opponents. Other than that, he doesn't have much because he simply doesn't need much more than that. Because it's a great piece of utility.

Sam Wilson's Recon Scan is, comparably, less valuable in most fights. It only counters miss. Where OG Falcon countered everything that had to do with striking the opponent and then gave him a boost for every failed evade, Sam Wilson just counters miss and places ruptures on the opponent when those misses fail.

However, I think Sam makes up for it in a few ways. First off, he simply has more individual pieces of utility than Falcon has.

* He can gain armor up and those are essentially nullify immune (they can be nullified but you'll get a corresponding passive effect if they are).
* With an armor up buff (very easy to get), he can parry non-contact attack and block unblockable special attacks from mutants.
* The more armor ups he gets, the harder he will become to bleed since each reducing bleed ability accuracy by 25%.
* Insane auto-block chance, especially against mutants.
* Power Drain.
* Inflicts Cowardice (shutting down Kitty Pryde, for example) during Recon Scan.
* Bulwark buff on heavy or intercept that makes it almost impossible for abilities to trigger when hitting his block.
* I think that each effect that Bulwark makes fail inflicts the opponent with a rupture, but I'm not entirely sure since my Sam isn't awakened yet. But that's how I read his sig ability. If so, you'd dealing rupture damage every time you block in certain scenarios.

I haven't even mentioned the stuff that his special attacks do.

We'll have to see if these extra pieces of utility are enough to make up for the fact that his Recon Scan doesn't do nearly as much as OG Falcon's. Falcon's also boosts his damage output enormously, which Sam's doesn't seem to do (at least not as often).

All in all, I really hope to get my Sam awakened. If so, I'll pump him full of all the sig stones I have and r3 him in an instant. I don't think he's as universally useful as Falcon often is, but I do think he'll counter all kinds of hard and annoying things that Falcon can't do by himself. Given that the two have a great synergy between them - opponents suffer -40% decreased Combat Power Gain while Recon Scan is on cooldown - you could bring in both of them to wreck all kinds of things. If you bring in Cap IW, who Sam has a great synergy with and Falcon has a decent one with, you have a trio of champions that can deal with a ton of stuff.

FluffyPigMonster

Sam Wilson is the tech Sam Wilson.

I said it.