Quicksilver easily has the most utility of any Science champ
Gainsley_Harriott
Member Posts: 255 ★★
The top 2 science champs Scorpion and Torch might finish fights quicker in certain situations but Quicksilver is still no slouch; my 6*R3 can kill ROL Winter Soldier in 1 minute 19 seconds without suicides/boosts.
Utility wise he still blows my mind:
- Evade counter.
- Unstoppable counter.
- Miss counter.
- Parry non-contact attacks.
- Dodge anything while in terminal velocity.
- Evade safety-net if intercepted or stunned.
- Dash forward to auto-evade any projectile/beam special attacks.
- Block all healing/regeneration with despair.
- Complete power-gain control via withers.
- Having a huge burst after the defender has been knocked down bypasses certain nodes, such as lifecycle.
Once you get used to his animations he’s a beast.
Utility wise he still blows my mind:
- Evade counter.
- Unstoppable counter.
- Miss counter.
- Parry non-contact attacks.
- Dodge anything while in terminal velocity.
- Evade safety-net if intercepted or stunned.
- Dash forward to auto-evade any projectile/beam special attacks.
- Block all healing/regeneration with despair.
- Complete power-gain control via withers.
- Having a huge burst after the defender has been knocked down bypasses certain nodes, such as lifecycle.
Once you get used to his animations he’s a beast.
9
Comments
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/336338/is-there-anyone-who-counters-more-stuff-than-quicksilver/p1
https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/336547/titania/p1
Yeah Titania has more debuffs in total for a short period of time but in terms of usable utility Godsilver wrecks.
I really like Campo’s take on it here
I do agree that QS has the most utility of any science champ in the game. And if I'm going into a blind quest where I want a science champ, honestly I'd probably be bringing QS. He can handle the passive power gain of mystics, he doesn't get punished by nullify, his no-dex-buff mechanic gets around neutralise, he can counter miss/evade/unstoppable, non contact hits, he has a safety net on evade that can be used to autoevade Doom's sp2 for example, and increased evade window.
I don't think you can find a science champ to counter more individual things than him. And for that reason, has the most utility.
But.. the thing is, we don't ever really go into blind quests. So that strength isn't always necessary. It's fantastic for a progressing account where you get a QS early and can suddenly counter all of these things. But as a top tier player, you often have options who can do any single piece of QS's kit well enough to use.
Now I'm not saying QS is bad, i actually love him and am very much considering him as my 2nd or 3rd R5 science champ (once I R5 Cassie). He is so, so good for war against mystics on section 1 of path 5 as evidenced by MP Blaze (check out his war gameplay with QS - it's awesome).
But overall I agree with OP, Quicksilver has the most utility of any science champ - but, I don't think it makes him the best science champ, or that close to the best even. Oftentimes we don't need to be able to counter all of these things at once at the highest tier, in BGs and War you're often only countering a few things at once. But it does mean that if you rank QS, he will be useful in a hell of a lot of places.
You said Quicksilver has all these utilities and that other champs also have each individual utility, but you never actually mentioned any downside to QS, therefore I don’t get the rationale.
You basically said “X can do a lot of things and Y can do one thing. We don’t always need a lot of things therefore Y is better”. This would make sense if having a lot of things actually had a downside.
Hope this makes sense, apologies if I misunderstood.
Also in the video as well as the comments section Campo admits that he personally has a hard time lining everything up with combos/animation and so does most of the community. While this is fair, once you get used to it it’s fine.
“Because of the skill cap, because of the odd playstyle and rotation, that’s the only reason he’s so low on the list” - Campo
BGs is more about damage, War is about guaranteeing success. I don't really often subscribe to "Best Champ" or "Top 10 champs", because i think the game is too complex to really reduce a champion down to that. But there's a reason we see Scorpion, Torch, Spidey 99 bans more than QS bans in BGs and in War.
Quicksilver can do a lot of things, but he's not necessary. In BGs he's too slow ramp up to be the top, top champion. I do really enjoy him for BG attack personally, but at his peak he's getting 52-52k, where better science options are getting more.
In war, he definitely has his uses and is a valuable attacker to have. I did say it before, so please don't think i'm ignoring his use there. I just don't think he's as valuable to a battle group as scorpion, torch or spidey 99 (I personally think Titania has more use in war than QS, and in future so will Cassie Lang). Quicksilver is a fantastic champion to have in the battlegroup, but he's not used as widely on the map as Titania, Scorp, Torch etc.
It's less that QS has a downside I didn't mention, but it's more that the other science champs bring more use in war, and higher scores in BGs. QS is a fantastic champion, but the others I've mentioned tend to be used more in every deck I've seen in BGs, and in most other alliances in war. There's a reason for that, and it's that QS's wide array of utility, while very nice and useful when needed, often isn't needed in it's entirety. What he does in 10 situations could be done just as well, if not better by 10 specific champs if that makes sense.
Maybe sometimes in war you need to path a science champ who counters miss and power gain for the first section and unstoppable and projectile basics for the next, but it very rarely comes up. With each member needing to do 5 fights on average, and 3 champs on the team, it's easier than you think to get each fight a specific counter.
Like I said, Quicksilver is a fantastic champion, filled with utility. But just having tons of utility doesn't make you good for Bgs, and it doesn't mean you're a top war champion - you need more than just that as evidenced by what I've mentioned before, quicksilver isn't blacklist/whitelist material and in my mind, not one of the top in his class.
For example, if you need an Evade counter, QS easily fits the bill against non-Skill opponents. Titania technically has utility to handle that with Haymakers providing a safety net for when they evade and hit you in the face, and also Decelerate to counter the evade. But, she is not really an evade counter, because you have to get to SP3, and you only counter the evade for 4 seconds.
Going to SP3 for the Petrify / Wither / etc. debuffs doesn't really come into play as intrinsic pieces of utility, since the Defender will have already proc'd their ability or node by the time you get to 3 bars of power, and the debuffs fall off quick enough. Those debuffs are more to supercharge her damage and let you go super aggressive. Her 'utility' is more about the number of debuffs + Haymaker, not the utility of the debuffs themselves. But, correct me if I am wrong.
Her Stagger is a really nice piece of utility though.
At the end of the day though, Science class is one of the hardest to compare champions, since they are all great in such different ways.
When I get some time I'll have to read this thread to see what I'm missing, because so far the damage is just not there.
The haymaker can be used for so, so much. As you've pointed out, indestructible is great. It can be used for damage tanking like Galan's Harvest, Havok detonation or terrax's rock field, special tanking like Doom Sp2, Chavez Sp2, Mangog Sp2, hell - even Bishop's unblockable SP2s, block damage, or any annoying burst of damage you can time it for. But Haymaker can be used for so much more than just tanking damage.
The unstoppable portion of it is severely underrated in getting easy intercepts, you can use her like Killmonger on his Sp1 by taking one hit on the block and retaliating instantly to take down ebb and flow intercept nodes.
You can use it to get free heavy attacks without needing to parry - which might not sound like much, but she's one of the few champions who can instantly knock ebony maw down without needing to try. Let Maw dash at you, take one hit on block and charge heavy - Maw will hit you but you're indestructible, and the unstoppable guarantees you landing a heavy - he's knocked down, falter timer removed (and with a non-damaging debuff, becomes even longer)
I've even had rare cases where I've found myself using titania against thing, and i mistimed rock stacks, so what i did was just used my haymaker to hammer away and get him above a bar of power with 15 rock stacks. Little things like that, that you'll find uses for.
You can also use Haymakers to push champions to Sp2, say you're fighting Knull and you don't want to deal with reversed controls. Get him to 0.9 bars of power, then dash back, dash at him to trigger haymaker and then do MLLL hold block immediately, let him tap you then retaliate with a counterpunch again, pushing him to 2 bars of power
The unblockable is a great part too, say you're fighting a void and on 9 combo when he's turtled up and blocking, then you need to get some hits in - just hit him with your unblockable haymaker attack, or tank some damage with indestructible.
And obviously she can cycle Sp3 tanking easily before the opponent gets another one. I've done this on power reserve, so an Sp3 every 1.5 bars of power for the opponent - she can handle it.
And that's just the haymakers, and just a small portion of what you can do with them
Her SP1 and 2 apply weaknesses that can hit the weakness cap with inequity - that's 90% reduction of incoming damage. It takes a rank 5 Titania's health from 62,000 health to 620,000 effective health because opponents take 10x as many hits to take her down. That alone is insane in terms of utility and safety.
And while the Sp3 debuffs aren't usually useful for utility, they're more for damage . You can actually use Sp3 to reverse large chunks of healing, there was a masochism meta in BGs a while back where they healed like 25% health and Titania Sp3 could take a champ from 100-0% in one go with damage + reversal. You can also reverse power gain, so going against a mephisto you can trigger aura before an Sp3 and he will never get to 3 bars, or with this current prowess AW tactic, if someone just got to Sp3 you could throw your own and reverse their power.
She's also one of the few science champions in the game that doesn't need her debuffs to stick around. Take mighty charge for example. You use Mr F there, Quicksilver, Scorpion, Cassie, Spider ham and all of them suffer when their debuffs are removed. But Titania only needs them to apply in the first place. Using Titania against Kingpin in BGs is a prime example of this, once her debuffs are applied - who cares if they're shrugged off, Titania already got her fury from it.
And all of this before I've even mentioned that she's buff immune! And we all know how amazing that utility is. She's also the only buff immune with a stagger, so she's the got a niche there with buff control.
I get why you would say Titania doesn't have *that* much utility, because it's not all obviously written down in her kit. But I've used her pretty extensively, and the sheer number of fights she's ended up working for has really solidified her as having some pretty great utility. Not the top in her class, but a serious contender as an amazing champion.
I didn't want to get into how much the Haymaker lets you do, but you are completely right there.
You gotta stop this it's getting annoying.