Can Black Cat take on Mangog? Surprisingly...yeah, kinda
Ercarret
Member Posts: 3,065 ★★★★★
After someone saw a video of me using Black Cat's signature ability to evade Rintrah's special 2s, and generally just melting him like he was butter, they asked me if I could take on Mangog next. I very confidently said...maybe.
The thing is, Mangog is a tricky fight for Black Cat. He's bleed immune and, on top of that, doesn't really have any abilities that can fail. Normally, you'd look at those things and go, that sounds like a terrible opponent for Black Cat to take on. And you'd be right. But a request is a request, right? And I was curious.
My first thought was that maybe his unstoppable buff can me messed with? Well, no. I was quickly disabused of that notion. I was basing my assumption off the fact that I've successfully countered Killmonger's unstoppable with Black Cat's sabotage debuff in the past, but that was me misremembering how Killmonger works. Looking back over his abilities, he gains counterpunch charges that turn into unstoppable when you strike his block, and that conversion is what Black Cat prevents. Mangog simply gains an unstoppable buff, and Black Cat's sabotage debuff can't counter that.
This nearly stopped me in my tracks. But wait! Is there not any way to beat Mangog with Black Cat? How can she possibly put up a good fight against him? Well, let's look at one.
This is a fight from 8.1.4. It's a beefy Mangog with over 500K health. You can see the full nodes in the video but the short version is that Ebb & Flow - Heavy reduces all damage by 60% until you knock down the defender, after which point you gain a cruelty passive that increases your critical damage rating by 30% for 12 seconds, after which point the protection comes back and your cruelty passive disappears. Then you have the standard Skill EQ nodes where you gain a fury passive whenever you purify a debuff on yourself.
It honestly went much better than expected. Let's have a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSk2HBgliuM
There are a few reasons why this fight went really well:
1) By not letting him use his SP1, he does not gain rage charges all that much. He does gain the occasional charge when I use a full combo, but otherwise, he'd mainly build up the charges with his SP1s. Without them, the build-up is quite slow. So no unstoppable, no unblockable, just a normal fight.
2) That leaves his SP2s to deal with, and those are nasty. Luckily, Black Cat can evade them like there's no tomorrow. I wasn't sure if she'd be able to since they are quite long and she only gets a 1-second evade, but she handled it beautifully.
3) Black Cat completely shuts down his protection after a while. I'm not entirely sure why this is but I've suspected for a while that her defensive ability accuracy reduction can do that. She tends to be good for those types of matches. My guess is that I landed a hit on Mangog at just the moment where the protection would go back up, lowering his defensive ability accuracy and thus preventing the protection from activating. But I'm not sure.
So, in conclusion, can Black Cat deal with Mangog? Yeah, kinda. She doesn't punish any defensive abilities of his, and he does not bleed, but she can fight him in a way that at least I don't often do - by pushing him to his SP2 and safely evading it, and in doing so, circumventing what makes him so annoying as a defender. I wouldn't bring her to fight a Mangog in a potential Abyss 2.0, but can she defeat a Mangog with a BG-sized healthpool? Most definitely.
The thing is, Mangog is a tricky fight for Black Cat. He's bleed immune and, on top of that, doesn't really have any abilities that can fail. Normally, you'd look at those things and go, that sounds like a terrible opponent for Black Cat to take on. And you'd be right. But a request is a request, right? And I was curious.
My first thought was that maybe his unstoppable buff can me messed with? Well, no. I was quickly disabused of that notion. I was basing my assumption off the fact that I've successfully countered Killmonger's unstoppable with Black Cat's sabotage debuff in the past, but that was me misremembering how Killmonger works. Looking back over his abilities, he gains counterpunch charges that turn into unstoppable when you strike his block, and that conversion is what Black Cat prevents. Mangog simply gains an unstoppable buff, and Black Cat's sabotage debuff can't counter that.
This nearly stopped me in my tracks. But wait! Is there not any way to beat Mangog with Black Cat? How can she possibly put up a good fight against him? Well, let's look at one.
This is a fight from 8.1.4. It's a beefy Mangog with over 500K health. You can see the full nodes in the video but the short version is that Ebb & Flow - Heavy reduces all damage by 60% until you knock down the defender, after which point you gain a cruelty passive that increases your critical damage rating by 30% for 12 seconds, after which point the protection comes back and your cruelty passive disappears. Then you have the standard Skill EQ nodes where you gain a fury passive whenever you purify a debuff on yourself.
It honestly went much better than expected. Let's have a look.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSk2HBgliuMThere are a few reasons why this fight went really well:
1) By not letting him use his SP1, he does not gain rage charges all that much. He does gain the occasional charge when I use a full combo, but otherwise, he'd mainly build up the charges with his SP1s. Without them, the build-up is quite slow. So no unstoppable, no unblockable, just a normal fight.
2) That leaves his SP2s to deal with, and those are nasty. Luckily, Black Cat can evade them like there's no tomorrow. I wasn't sure if she'd be able to since they are quite long and she only gets a 1-second evade, but she handled it beautifully.
3) Black Cat completely shuts down his protection after a while. I'm not entirely sure why this is but I've suspected for a while that her defensive ability accuracy reduction can do that. She tends to be good for those types of matches. My guess is that I landed a hit on Mangog at just the moment where the protection would go back up, lowering his defensive ability accuracy and thus preventing the protection from activating. But I'm not sure.
So, in conclusion, can Black Cat deal with Mangog? Yeah, kinda. She doesn't punish any defensive abilities of his, and he does not bleed, but she can fight him in a way that at least I don't often do - by pushing him to his SP2 and safely evading it, and in doing so, circumventing what makes him so annoying as a defender. I wouldn't bring her to fight a Mangog in a potential Abyss 2.0, but can she defeat a Mangog with a BG-sized healthpool? Most definitely.
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Comments
Good work my friend!
I'm curious where I can take her next and see what she can do. I need to find a beefy Sasquatch somewhere, I think. Part of me want to do a tribute to @BitterSteel's "Titania best skill counter in the game" video (which was awesome) and showcase just how good a mystic counter she is, because for some reason most of the best fights I've had with her recently have been vs annoying mystics. But I would 1) need to learn to actually edit stuff, and 2) probably need to wait out the current BG meta since that inflates her damage vs basically everyone. I'm curious how well she'd fare vs. a regular Absorbing Man, for example.
The basic idea of Black Cat is that she counters defensive ability accuracy, similar to OG Falcon. The difference between them is that she builds up to -100% defensive ability accuracy over time instead of, like Falcon, get it immediately as he locks on. However, when she has it up, she can then maintain it for longer than he can. Then, when abilities fail, she deals damage. Against champions like Thing, where he'd normally get a rock stack with every hit, that damage really adds up.
She's a cool champ. I love champions that reduce defensive ability accuracy. I used to love my 5* Falcon for that very reason but I somehow got a 6* Black Cat faster than I got a 6* Falcon, so she's my main DAAR champion currently.