Day 21 Recap! Nameless Grandmaster has fallen! The Necropolis run went extremely well imo, especially cause I have never played Kate in long form content before. I ended up using 18 revives and 6 team revives, which equates to 1320 units if you was to buy them from scratch (I also used some potions, but honestly not many).
Before entering the Necropolis, I decided to take Doom up to r5, as he is very good for air walker and in general great for necro, slow but effective. I also hopped into lower level eq to get a 500 unit deal with 5 30% champion boosts to help a ton.
Team : Kate, Chavez, Crossbones, Doom (Lord and Saviour), Prof X (final 1%)
I decided to take the Titania into Guardian lanes, and there was only some minimal issues tbh.
Titania - Kate, took her down to 5% first try, could have soloed but didn’t want to be spam restarting live on stream. Crossbones finished
Vision arkus - this threw me a bit because my plan with doom didn’t work, I ended up having to essentially team revive through it, but it only cost me 2 team revives as everyone was doing decent chunks
Omega Sentinel - Kate took her down to around 25%, but then the phase 3 necro boon node got me, went back in with doom a couple times and he finished the job
Air walker - 15 mins of doom cycling, thankfully the skip button on sp3 exists for otherwise this would have took close to an hour. Took 2 shots with doom to get him down
Captain Britain - Messed up a couple times here, didn’t know tranquilize turned off the node but a helpful person in the stream informed me. After that it was 2 shots to get her down
Wiccan - Now this, this was scary. My plan for Wiccan was to use Kate like I had seen in guides I watched to prepare. But what I didn’t prepare for was the fact they all used despair, and I didn’t have it. Wiccans heal went crazy, and I had no idea what to do because Kate just couldn’t do it. I tried out doom, and turns out he works very well because with doom cycle they basically don’t throw specials, so he can’t heal. Doom the Saviour, otherwise the run would have been in trouble.
Psycho man - took a couple attempts with Kate, the necro boon is actually really annoying for this fight as you need to do weird rotations and sometimes throw specials into concussions to not take damage.
Guardian - this guy was a slog, but I expected it. Kates coldsnap is massively reduced due to his energy resistance, but it still ticks for around 6k when ramped up. Took me 2 team revives to get him down, but it was frustratingly slow
Valkyrie - very annoying fight, when the root comes around you’re essentially dead because the block damage is insane. I used Kate, but decided not to ramp up and just use normal coldsnap to get the damage going quickly, and then sp3 to try and increase them. It took a couple revives, but wasn’t too horrible, just mechanically tricky.
Red Guardian - this should have been a solo, but he caught me with unblockable sp1 when rooted. Kates coldsnap tick so hard here, and I got him down to 30% in one go then went back in and finished him
Sam Wilson - another pretty simple Kate fight, only took 2 revives and one was because I took an sp2 fully into block on accident. I was getting pretty comfortable with Kate at this point
Dragon man - I thought this fight would be harder than it turned out to be, only took 1 revive, and he was good with throwing specials so no sp3 from power gain. Block damage eventually chipped me down
Cap Infinity War - Finally a Kate solo! Granted he is one of the easiest bosses but I had a lot of health and charges left here, it wasn’t even close
Nova - a bit annoying, but not too bad because of the mystics on my team. I used 1 team revive, and he went down relatively easily, only throwing 1 sp3 from his power gain on dashes
So it was time for the Grandmaster! The stream absolutely peaked at this point, hitting close to 30 viewers so the pressure was on 😅. Thankfully it went really well, crossbones took him down to 31% in one go (ignoring me getting clapped with Chavez because I forgot about the 4th banned thing in phase 1), and then the rest of the team smashed in to take him to 1%. It took me 1 team revive to take him down to 1%, and then r2 professor X finished him off very easily because of the immunity. The Necropolis was over!
So it was rewards time! I started with the 2-3 gem again incase, and glad I did because it was tech and I didn’t have a single tech champ. I took 2 tech crystals from the 7 star class selectors, and got lady deathstrike and guilly 99. Not great, but guilly has my heart because I used her a lot for necropolis 100% on my main account at r1. So guilly was going up.
I had to clear out my poolies to sell iso for gold to get her up, but we got it over the line and got the r3 lvl 45 Guilly 99, taking me to Valiant. I restarted the game and there it was, the title and Ingame mail. Challenge over!
I’m going to post a separate comment later about my thoughts on the challenge, what I would do differently, account mvps etc, and even say what I think could be changed to help actual new players progress.
I'm glad I got Valiant before him 🤣🤣🤣🤣 bro really violated as by saying move your lazy lousy Unskilled ass😂😂
Solid work mate. One of the best thing I ever saw in mcoc history yet. Keep it up. Hope you will bring more content like this. Congratulations .
Oh I plan to do more things like this. When I new progression title drops (and is reasonably achievable) I’ll be doing this again. But in the mean time there’s a few other challenges I’ve got in mind (eg : Cavalier in 24 hours)
I'm glad I got Valiant before him 🤣🤣🤣🤣 bro really violated as by saying move your lazy lousy Unskilled ass😂😂
Solid work mate. One of the best thing I ever saw in mcoc history yet. Keep it up. Hope you will bring more content like this. Congratulations .
Oh I plan to do more things like this. When I new progression title drops (and is reasonably achievable) I’ll be doing this again. But in the mean time there’s a few other challenges I’ve got in mind (eg : Cavalier in 24 hours)
Solid mate. I will wait for it. Btw I do have g299 as R3
Day 21 Recap! Nameless Grandmaster has fallen! The Necropolis run went extremely well imo, especially cause I have never played Kate in long form content before. I ended up using 18 revives and 6 team revives, which equates to 1320 units if you was to buy them from scratch (I also used some potions, but honestly not many).
Before entering the Necropolis, I decided to take Doom up to r5, as he is very good for air walker and in general great for necro, slow but effective. I also hopped into lower level eq to get a 500 unit deal with 5 30% champion boosts to help a ton.
Team : Kate, Chavez, Crossbones, Doom (Lord and Saviour), Prof X (final 1%)
I decided to take the Titania into Guardian lanes, and there was only some minimal issues tbh.
Titania - Kate, took her down to 5% first try, could have soloed but didn’t want to be spam restarting live on stream. Crossbones finished
Vision arkus - this threw me a bit because my plan with doom didn’t work, I ended up having to essentially team revive through it, but it only cost me 2 team revives as everyone was doing decent chunks
Omega Sentinel - Kate took her down to around 25%, but then the phase 3 necro boon node got me, went back in with doom a couple times and he finished the job
Air walker - 15 mins of doom cycling, thankfully the skip button on sp3 exists for otherwise this would have took close to an hour. Took 2 shots with doom to get him down
Captain Britain - Messed up a couple times here, didn’t know tranquilize turned off the node but a helpful person in the stream informed me. After that it was 2 shots to get her down
Wiccan - Now this, this was scary. My plan for Wiccan was to use Kate like I had seen in guides I watched to prepare. But what I didn’t prepare for was the fact they all used despair, and I didn’t have it. Wiccans heal went crazy, and I had no idea what to do because Kate just couldn’t do it. I tried out doom, and turns out he works very well because with doom cycle they basically don’t throw specials, so he can’t heal. Doom the Saviour, otherwise the run would have been in trouble.
Psycho man - took a couple attempts with Kate, the necro boon is actually really annoying for this fight as you need to do weird rotations and sometimes throw specials into concussions to not take damage.
Guardian - this guy was a slog, but I expected it. Kates coldsnap is massively reduced due to his energy resistance, but it still ticks for around 6k when ramped up. Took me 2 team revives to get him down, but it was frustratingly slow
Valkyrie - very annoying fight, when the root comes around you’re essentially dead because the block damage is insane. I used Kate, but decided not to ramp up and just use normal coldsnap to get the damage going quickly, and then sp3 to try and increase them. It took a couple revives, but wasn’t too horrible, just mechanically tricky.
Red Guardian - this should have been a solo, but he caught me with unblockable sp1 when rooted. Kates coldsnap tick so hard here, and I got him down to 30% in one go then went back in and finished him
Sam Wilson - another pretty simple Kate fight, only took 2 revives and one was because I took an sp2 fully into block on accident. I was getting pretty comfortable with Kate at this point
Dragon man - I thought this fight would be harder than it turned out to be, only took 1 revive, and he was good with throwing specials so no sp3 from power gain. Block damage eventually chipped me down
Cap Infinity War - Finally a Kate solo! Granted he is one of the easiest bosses but I had a lot of health and charges left here, it wasn’t even close
Nova - a bit annoying, but not too bad because of the mystics on my team. I used 1 team revive, and he went down relatively easily, only throwing 1 sp3 from his power gain on dashes
So it was time for the Grandmaster! The stream absolutely peaked at this point, hitting close to 30 viewers so the pressure was on 😅. Thankfully it went really well, crossbones took him down to 31% in one go (ignoring me getting clapped with Chavez because I forgot about the 4th banned thing in phase 1), and then the rest of the team smashed in to take him to 1%. It took me 1 team revive to take him down to 1%, and then r2 professor X finished him off very easily because of the immunity. The Necropolis was over!
So it was rewards time! I started with the 2-3 gem again incase, and glad I did because it was tech and I didn’t have a single tech champ. I took 2 tech crystals from the 7 star class selectors, and got lady deathstrike and guilly 99. Not great, but guilly has my heart because I used her a lot for necropolis 100% on my main account at r1. So guilly was going up.
I had to clear out my poolies to sell iso for gold to get her up, but we got it over the line and got the r3 lvl 45 Guilly 99, taking me to Valiant. I restarted the game and there it was, the title and Ingame mail. Challenge over!
I’m going to post a separate comment later about my thoughts on the challenge, what I would do differently, account mvps etc, and even say what I think could be changed to help actual new players progress.
Kate handles that Air walker fights much better. I solo'd it every time with her. I didn't check this thread every day so I'm too late with my advise, sorry!
Kate handles that Air walker fights much better. I solo'd it every time with her. I didn't check this thread every day so I'm too late with my advise, sorry!
Yup AW is an easy fight with Kate. Doom works but I’d rather not use him there
Kate handles that Air walker fights much better. I solo'd it every time with her. I didn't check this thread every day so I'm too late with my advise, sorry!
Yeah somebody told me in stream that Kate is better for air walker but sadly I had already started with Doom 🙃. It was ok though, just a bit of a longer fight no real resource loss.
Congrats, that's actually insane to pull off in this amount of time and limited champions. Now, don't go chatting on global with this account, when the trolls spot a 450k rating valiant ... reports galore 😂😂😂
Kate handles that Air walker fights much better. I solo'd it every time with her. I didn't check this thread every day so I'm too late with my advise, sorry!
Yup AW is an easy fight with Kate. Doom works but I’d rather not use him there
I used max Ascended doom and it was fairly good fight. easily solo'ed him. I was spaming sp3 back to back
Kate handles that Air walker fights much better. I solo'd it every time with her. I didn't check this thread every day so I'm too late with my advise, sorry!
Yup AW is an easy fight with Kate. Doom works but I’d rather not use him there
I used max Ascended doom and it was fairly good fight. easily solo'ed him. I was spaming sp3 back to back
You mentioned you're likely going to be doing battleground streams after the challenge. You're super skilled so maybe also consider doing something to showcase champs you feel are good and why. Feel there is a lot to be learned.
21 Days, 9 Progression Levels Achieved, and 2 of the endgame pieces of content completed. Valiant has been achieved with a lot of time to spare on the deadline, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
Before I go into anything else, I’d first like to say thanks for all the support, through the forums, the 1 Twitch Stream, and the YouTube Channel. You guys allowed me to stream in the first place, and watching the streams/videos and commenting encouraged me to keep going even on days I didn’t have much motivation to play. Once again a huge thanks to @DNA3000 for originally helping me out getting the first Speedrun account unbanned, and a thanks to the Kabam devs for not banning my account and watching the process happen. I can happily say I have likely helped move the boundary on what is deemed “impossible” for a new account to achieve.
So now onto the point of this post. I wanted to highlight a few things now that the challenge is over to give some additional perspective, tips, general comments, and even some comments on how the game could be improved further to aid the new account experience, which hopefully applies to both new players and players like me creating an alt account to replay the game. Im gonna split it into a few sections incase people want to read specific parts:
1. Account MVPs 2. What would I do differently next time 3. What I think should be changed to make the game better to play through from beginning
ACCOUNT MVPS
I made a 5 champ team to show who I believe have been the 5 most impactful champions for the account, but also have an honourable mention in Doom. He was only used for the Necropolis, but he did save the run at Wiccan when Kate couldn’t get through him. He’s still the OG Mystic beast imo, who has only fallen out of favour due to his slow controlling nature and that he isn’t a quick burst damage champion, which is what the game has moved to due to the rise of BGs I’ve ranked the champs 1-5, but honestly this ranking could change a bit as many rankings was very close:
1. Kate Bishop. I think this one was quite obvious. The necropolis MVP and was on my act 8 exploration team for literally 107/108 paths. Hands down one of the most broken champions in the game. Simple playstyle, insane damage, and can be used in both short and long fights in different ways. She isn’t just a coldsnap champion though, the fragility and tranquilize are very effective against certain opponents and nodes, and massively help in her usage. Getting both the 5 and 6 star version of her was an absolute blessing from Kabam.
2. Steve (Summoned Symbiote). The absolute GOAT of the early game. Allowing this champion to be maxed out after act 3 is insane for new accounts. Insanely easy to use, cracked damage, good buffs and debuffs, literally the only sad thing about him is that you can’t get his pfs in general content, making them a useless part of his kit. He helped me through act 4,5,6 and 7, which is incredible range for 1 champion, and he is the account mascot imo despite not being able to use him in act 8.
3. America Chavez. One of the most undervalued utility champions for general content. Everyone knows she’s very good in bgs, but she’s even more insane in general content. Can reduce buff duration, heal infinitely from sp2, reduce and reverse power gain, reduce buff potency (mostly fury) and spam specials due to power gain on sp1. That is an insane kit for one champion, and it showed during act 8 as she crushed everything in her way, even when it wasn’t a cosmic champion. Combined with Kate, this was a duo that could have probably done everything on their own, so much utility between them for different nodes/champions.
4. Cheelith. What a boss killer. Medium medium comboes during wounded phases leads to immense damage with the bleed debuffs stacking. She is very tanky, has cleanse and neutralize, can ignore unstoppable (underrated ability), increase her bleed chance, and even heal once per fight from sp3. She was especially insane for Superior Kang, Bahamet and Cerastes. But she was also very good for general content and paths. She was on around 50% of my act 8 exploration teams, and only really fell out after spring cleaning dropped and I got a major account buff.
5. Gamora. One of my first 7 stars, and an insane one at that. On her base, Gamora looks average at best. Some buffs, armour breaks etc, but nothing other cosmics can’t do. But looking deeper into her kit unlocks lots of other utility. Refreshing buffs, increased special damage from Godslayer effect, True Strike on sp3, ability to ignore miss with enough buffs. That’s a very good kit and does a lot more than the usual targeted cosmics. She destroyed Cerastes, and very narrowly missed out on being in the Necropolis team, but was on the majority of my act 8 exploration teams.
WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY?
Whilst I am happy with how I played this account, obviously there’s always improvements, time saves, better rankup choices etc.
One of the main things I would do differently is invest more in masteries earlier on. By the end of the challenge I had 1600 units left. Obviously I wouldn’t have known this beforehand but with hindsight I would have invested those units into stupefy and despair early on. 2 of the main problems for new accounts to deal with are regeneration, and nodes like limber that reduce your stuns. These masteries would help to counter this, and make certain champs like Photon, Gamora, Kate even more potent due to their play styles. It would have saved me some units throughout the run, and would have made certain fights a breeze compared to very tough (eg Kate vs necropolis Wiccan).
Another thing I would do differently would be to utilise incursions more. After the first 5 day cycle of incursions I rarely played it. This was kinda poor from me, I should have been playing this mode for resources such as gold and iso, which are 2 major sticking points for new accounts. As I progressed through the tiers, I could have got lots of shards and incursion artifacts, that could have got me some insane champions or just more iso for the account.
The final thing I would have done is very minor, but it’s buying the 75% 3 day xp boost for 200 units. With hindsight this purchase would have been reasonable, and helped me progress a lot faster at the start of the game due to levelling up faster. It is only a minor change, but something to keep in mind for future challenges.
POSSIBLE BENEFICIAL GAME CHANGES
Now I want this section to be beneficial for both new players and players like me who do stupid challenges. In addition most of these changes aren’t just “make the game easier” because Kabam has already made many nerfs to content and imo it’s at a mostly good level for new and experienced players. That being said, there is a few things I think could do with changing:
1. Level restrictions. Certain content in the game has level restrictions meaning you can’t play them until reaching a certain level (usually level 45). The most known for this is Variant Content, but these restriction also exist in content like EQ and Side Quest. Imo with the way the game has changed, level restrictions no longer make sense, and at the very least need to be reduced. For example, the change in act 1-5 of removing chapters, fights, quests etc, means that even with an xp boost, players now gain less xp on their first run through. Granted this has been attempted to be negated with the introduction of summoners objectives to get champs like nick fury, which give lots of xp along the way, but it is still a lot less xp. On my Speedrun specifically, this led me to be lvl 41 at the end of act 5, meaning I still couldn’t access certain content like Variant which is kinda meant to be attempted at that stage. I could have majorly benefitted from completing Variant 5 for example if I was skilled enough, but was not allowed purely cause of level. The end of this account shows that level does not equate to skill, so locking content behind level restrictions doesn’t really make sense to me. I would be happy to hear a Kabam take on this though, as well as any other comments I’m gonna make.
2. Traders Outpost Store. Imo this store is a bit too weak for lower progression levels in a few regards. Steve was something specific to this month so I’m removing him from discussions here, as any future challenge wouldn’t have this. For lower progression levels such as Uncollected and Cavalier/Thronebreaker, the Traders Outpost offers little value imo, meaning the side quest offers little value overall. There isn’t really many resources in this store that appealed to me in the run, as there was very little iso, gold, catalysts, or shards that can help progress your account. It is a weekly store, so I get you can stack the resources but I still think the value is low. In addition I think grouping progression levels past Conqueror (Act 4) leads to it being very difficult to put in rewards that are beneficial for all. Past uncollected, the progression levels are very far apart in terms of requirements and approximate account power levels. My account is an anomaly, so I’m talking in general here. Grouping any 2 of these progression levels leads to 1 of 2 outcomes, rewards being insane for the lower title and ok for higher title, or rewards being ok for the lower title and absolutely terrible for the higher title. At the moment it is at the second outcome, meaning certain progression levels essentially get very meh value for doing side quest, giving no motivation to do it. Whilst I agree it can’t give the most insane value ever as it’s only a side quest, it seems side quest has fallen away in terms of value in the last 12-18 months.
3. Content difficulty gap from act 5 to act 6. Yes, I realise this has been discussed many times, but it is still an issue. When I went from act 5 to act 6 on the Speedrun, I felt it. Opponents tripled in health and sometimes attack, lot more complicated nodes and champions, and longer paths. Now imagine how this would feel to an actual new player who just reached act 6. Honestly it might be a big enough difficulty increase to cause players to lose motivation and look towards other games, which is obviously bad. In addition, the previously discussed issues with side quest and level requirements means players have less areas to turn to in order to improve their roster or farm resources. The main option for these players would be to go back and explore act 4 or 5, which is still very time consuming despite the nerfs, and if the point of these nerfs was to streamline the early game so players could get to act 6,7,8 and other content more easily, it seems a little bit contradictory? I know this was not intentional, but it is the effect that these nerfs and changes of content have had. One comment a lot of people reply to this is the usual “get gud” kinda comment. But my reply to that is, where are they meant to get gud? Act 5 is no longer difficult and good training. Content that would be good training like Variant is locked behind level restrictions. And finally there is the brick wall of act 6, kinda meaning you can get a bit stuck. Once again, would love to hear any developers thoughts on this, and would be willing to engage in further discussion about my thoughts and any further questions.
So that’s the end for now! Finally again thanks everyone for the support on this insane concept, it really has propelled the account forwards and hopefully reached a wide range of players, even motivating some to get to Valiant. If anyone has any further questions about the account, feel free to tag me in the thread and I’ll be willing to answer as detailed as possible.
I’ll be back in the future for more dumb challenges, so keep an eye out on the forums as that will be where I announce it first.
Congratulations!! What an achievement. Not going to lie, when you started this I was skeptical if you would be able to achieve it. Very impressed that you knocked this out of the park and has been fun to follow along this journey.
Huge congratulations man. I’ve been my own new account since you & Lagacy have been doing one and it gave me a newfound appreciation for your speedrun. It already looks impressive on paper, then when I actually tried it myself, it’s still harder than I thought it was. Amazing job man.
Apart from the whole "making the rest of us look like scrubs" thing haha
MSD and Cantona are my you gotta be $*!#ing me bookends of MCOC.
The thing about both of them is every time I see them do something ridiculous I always get the feeling I haven't seen the best they can do yet. Like, as crazy as this sounds, I can clearly see opportunities for improvement here.
Like, for Cantona, not for me. I'm tired just watching all of this.
Apart from the whole "making the rest of us look like scrubs" thing haha
MSD and Cantona are my you gotta be $*!#ing me bookends of MCOC.
The thing about both of them is every time I see them do something ridiculous I always get the feeling I haven't seen the best they can do yet. Like, as crazy as this sounds, I can clearly see opportunities for improvement here.
Like, for Cantona, not for me. I'm tired just watching all of this.
Being put in the same list as MSD is insanely high praise 😅 And I agree yeah the run probably could have been shortened by 1-2 days, also ending with 1600 units on the account means it was definitely unoptimised.
Comments
Day 21 Recap!
Nameless Grandmaster has fallen! The Necropolis run went extremely well imo, especially cause I have never played Kate in long form content before.
I ended up using 18 revives and 6 team revives, which equates to 1320 units if you was to buy them from scratch (I also used some potions, but honestly not many).
Before entering the Necropolis, I decided to take Doom up to r5, as he is very good for air walker and in general great for necro, slow but effective. I also hopped into lower level eq to get a 500 unit deal with 5 30% champion boosts to help a ton.
Team : Kate, Chavez, Crossbones, Doom (Lord and Saviour), Prof X (final 1%)
I decided to take the Titania into Guardian lanes, and there was only some minimal issues tbh.
Titania - Kate, took her down to 5% first try, could have soloed but didn’t want to be spam restarting live on stream. Crossbones finished
Vision arkus - this threw me a bit because my plan with doom didn’t work, I ended up having to essentially team revive through it, but it only cost me 2 team revives as everyone was doing decent chunks
Omega Sentinel - Kate took her down to around 25%, but then the phase 3 necro boon node got me, went back in with doom a couple times and he finished the job
Air walker - 15 mins of doom cycling, thankfully the skip button on sp3 exists for otherwise this would have took close to an hour. Took 2 shots with doom to get him down
Captain Britain - Messed up a couple times here, didn’t know tranquilize turned off the node but a helpful person in the stream informed me. After that it was 2 shots to get her down
Wiccan - Now this, this was scary. My plan for Wiccan was to use Kate like I had seen in guides I watched to prepare. But what I didn’t prepare for was the fact they all used despair, and I didn’t have it. Wiccans heal went crazy, and I had no idea what to do because Kate just couldn’t do it. I tried out doom, and turns out he works very well because with doom cycle they basically don’t throw specials, so he can’t heal. Doom the Saviour, otherwise the run would have been in trouble.
Psycho man - took a couple attempts with Kate, the necro boon is actually really annoying for this fight as you need to do weird rotations and sometimes throw specials into concussions to not take damage.
Guardian - this guy was a slog, but I expected it. Kates coldsnap is massively reduced due to his energy resistance, but it still ticks for around 6k when ramped up. Took me 2 team revives to get him down, but it was frustratingly slow
Valkyrie - very annoying fight, when the root comes around you’re essentially dead because the block damage is insane. I used Kate, but decided not to ramp up and just use normal coldsnap to get the damage going quickly, and then sp3 to try and increase them. It took a couple revives, but wasn’t too horrible, just mechanically tricky.
Red Guardian - this should have been a solo, but he caught me with unblockable sp1 when rooted. Kates coldsnap tick so hard here, and I got him down to 30% in one go then went back in and finished him
Sam Wilson - another pretty simple Kate fight, only took 2 revives and one was because I took an sp2 fully into block on accident. I was getting pretty comfortable with Kate at this point
Dragon man - I thought this fight would be harder than it turned out to be, only took 1 revive, and he was good with throwing specials so no sp3 from power gain. Block damage eventually chipped me down
Cap Infinity War - Finally a Kate solo! Granted he is one of the easiest bosses but I had a lot of health and charges left here, it wasn’t even close
Nova - a bit annoying, but not too bad because of the mystics on my team. I used 1 team revive, and he went down relatively easily, only throwing 1 sp3 from his power gain on dashes
So it was time for the Grandmaster! The stream absolutely peaked at this point, hitting close to 30 viewers so the pressure was on 😅. Thankfully it went really well, crossbones took him down to 31% in one go (ignoring me getting clapped with Chavez because I forgot about the 4th banned thing in phase 1), and then the rest of the team smashed in to take him to 1%. It took me 1 team revive to take him down to 1%, and then r2 professor X finished him off very easily because of the immunity. The Necropolis was over!
So it was rewards time! I started with the 2-3 gem again incase, and glad I did because it was tech and I didn’t have a single tech champ. I took 2 tech crystals from the 7 star class selectors, and got lady deathstrike and guilly 99. Not great, but guilly has my heart because I used her a lot for necropolis 100% on my main account at r1. So guilly was going up.
I had to clear out my poolies to sell iso for gold to get her up, but we got it over the line and got the r3 lvl 45 Guilly 99, taking me to Valiant. I restarted the game and there it was, the title and Ingame mail. Challenge over!
I’m going to post a separate comment later about my thoughts on the challenge, what I would do differently, account mvps etc, and even say what I think could be changed to help actual new players progress.
Btw I do have g299 as R3
Congrats!!!
Apart from the whole "making the rest of us look like scrubs" thing haha
21 Days, 9 Progression Levels Achieved, and 2 of the endgame pieces of content completed. Valiant has been achieved with a lot of time to spare on the deadline, and I’ve enjoyed every minute of it.
Before I go into anything else, I’d first like to say thanks for all the support, through the forums, the 1 Twitch Stream, and the YouTube Channel. You guys allowed me to stream in the first place, and watching the streams/videos and commenting encouraged me to keep going even on days I didn’t have much motivation to play.
Once again a huge thanks to @DNA3000 for originally helping me out getting the first Speedrun account unbanned, and a thanks to the Kabam devs for not banning my account and watching the process happen. I can happily say I have likely helped move the boundary on what is deemed “impossible” for a new account to achieve.
So now onto the point of this post. I wanted to highlight a few things now that the challenge is over to give some additional perspective, tips, general comments, and even some comments on how the game could be improved further to aid the new account experience, which hopefully applies to both new players and players like me creating an alt account to replay the game.
Im gonna split it into a few sections incase people want to read specific parts:
1. Account MVPs
2. What would I do differently next time
3. What I think should be changed to make the game better to play through from beginning
ACCOUNT MVPS
I made a 5 champ team to show who I believe have been the 5 most impactful champions for the account, but also have an honourable mention in Doom. He was only used for the Necropolis, but he did save the run at Wiccan when Kate couldn’t get through him. He’s still the OG Mystic beast imo, who has only fallen out of favour due to his slow controlling nature and that he isn’t a quick burst damage champion, which is what the game has moved to due to the rise of BGs
I’ve ranked the champs 1-5, but honestly this ranking could change a bit as many rankings was very close:
1. Kate Bishop. I think this one was quite obvious. The necropolis MVP and was on my act 8 exploration team for literally 107/108 paths. Hands down one of the most broken champions in the game. Simple playstyle, insane damage, and can be used in both short and long fights in different ways. She isn’t just a coldsnap champion though, the fragility and tranquilize are very effective against certain opponents and nodes, and massively help in her usage. Getting both the 5 and 6 star version of her was an absolute blessing from Kabam.
2. Steve (Summoned Symbiote). The absolute GOAT of the early game. Allowing this champion to be maxed out after act 3 is insane for new accounts. Insanely easy to use, cracked damage, good buffs and debuffs, literally the only sad thing about him is that you can’t get his pfs in general content, making them a useless part of his kit. He helped me through act 4,5,6 and 7, which is incredible range for 1 champion, and he is the account mascot imo despite not being able to use him in act 8.
3. America Chavez. One of the most undervalued utility champions for general content. Everyone knows she’s very good in bgs, but she’s even more insane in general content. Can reduce buff duration, heal infinitely from sp2, reduce and reverse power gain, reduce buff potency (mostly fury) and spam specials due to power gain on sp1. That is an insane kit for one champion, and it showed during act 8 as she crushed everything in her way, even when it wasn’t a cosmic champion. Combined with Kate, this was a duo that could have probably done everything on their own, so much utility between them for different nodes/champions.
4. Cheelith. What a boss killer. Medium medium comboes during wounded phases leads to immense damage with the bleed debuffs stacking. She is very tanky, has cleanse and neutralize, can ignore unstoppable (underrated ability), increase her bleed chance, and even heal once per fight from sp3. She was especially insane for Superior Kang, Bahamet and Cerastes. But she was also very good for general content and paths. She was on around 50% of my act 8 exploration teams, and only really fell out after spring cleaning dropped and I got a major account buff.
5. Gamora. One of my first 7 stars, and an insane one at that. On her base, Gamora looks average at best. Some buffs, armour breaks etc, but nothing other cosmics can’t do. But looking deeper into her kit unlocks lots of other utility. Refreshing buffs, increased special damage from Godslayer effect, True Strike on sp3, ability to ignore miss with enough buffs. That’s a very good kit and does a lot more than the usual targeted cosmics. She destroyed Cerastes, and very narrowly missed out on being in the Necropolis team, but was on the majority of my act 8 exploration teams.
WHAT WOULD I DO DIFFERENTLY?
Whilst I am happy with how I played this account, obviously there’s always improvements, time saves, better rankup choices etc.
One of the main things I would do differently is invest more in masteries earlier on. By the end of the challenge I had 1600 units left. Obviously I wouldn’t have known this beforehand but with hindsight I would have invested those units into stupefy and despair early on. 2 of the main problems for new accounts to deal with are regeneration, and nodes like limber that reduce your stuns. These masteries would help to counter this, and make certain champs like Photon, Gamora, Kate even more potent due to their play styles. It would have saved me some units throughout the run, and would have made certain fights a breeze compared to very tough (eg Kate vs necropolis Wiccan).
Another thing I would do differently would be to utilise incursions more. After the first 5 day cycle of incursions I rarely played it. This was kinda poor from me, I should have been playing this mode for resources such as gold and iso, which are 2 major sticking points for new accounts. As I progressed through the tiers, I could have got lots of shards and incursion artifacts, that could have got me some insane champions or just more iso for the account.
The final thing I would have done is very minor, but it’s buying the 75% 3 day xp boost for 200 units. With hindsight this purchase would have been reasonable, and helped me progress a lot faster at the start of the game due to levelling up faster. It is only a minor change, but something to keep in mind for future challenges.
POSSIBLE BENEFICIAL GAME CHANGES
Now I want this section to be beneficial for both new players and players like me who do stupid challenges. In addition most of these changes aren’t just “make the game easier” because Kabam has already made many nerfs to content and imo it’s at a mostly good level for new and experienced players. That being said, there is a few things I think could do with changing:
1. Level restrictions. Certain content in the game has level restrictions meaning you can’t play them until reaching a certain level (usually level 45). The most known for this is Variant Content, but these restriction also exist in content like EQ and Side Quest. Imo with the way the game has changed, level restrictions no longer make sense, and at the very least need to be reduced.
For example, the change in act 1-5 of removing chapters, fights, quests etc, means that even with an xp boost, players now gain less xp on their first run through. Granted this has been attempted to be negated with the introduction of summoners objectives to get champs like nick fury, which give lots of xp along the way, but it is still a lot less xp.
On my Speedrun specifically, this led me to be lvl 41 at the end of act 5, meaning I still couldn’t access certain content like Variant which is kinda meant to be attempted at that stage. I could have majorly benefitted from completing Variant 5 for example if I was skilled enough, but was not allowed purely cause of level. The end of this account shows that level does not equate to skill, so locking content behind level restrictions doesn’t really make sense to me. I would be happy to hear a Kabam take on this though, as well as any other comments I’m gonna make.
2. Traders Outpost Store. Imo this store is a bit too weak for lower progression levels in a few regards. Steve was something specific to this month so I’m removing him from discussions here, as any future challenge wouldn’t have this.
For lower progression levels such as Uncollected and Cavalier/Thronebreaker, the Traders Outpost offers little value imo, meaning the side quest offers little value overall. There isn’t really many resources in this store that appealed to me in the run, as there was very little iso, gold, catalysts, or shards that can help progress your account. It is a weekly store, so I get you can stack the resources but I still think the value is low.
In addition I think grouping progression levels past Conqueror (Act 4) leads to it being very difficult to put in rewards that are beneficial for all. Past uncollected, the progression levels are very far apart in terms of requirements and approximate account power levels. My account is an anomaly, so I’m talking in general here. Grouping any 2 of these progression levels leads to 1 of 2 outcomes, rewards being insane for the lower title and ok for higher title, or rewards being ok for the lower title and absolutely terrible for the higher title. At the moment it is at the second outcome, meaning certain progression levels essentially get very meh value for doing side quest, giving no motivation to do it. Whilst I agree it can’t give the most insane value ever as it’s only a side quest, it seems side quest has fallen away in terms of value in the last 12-18 months.
3. Content difficulty gap from act 5 to act 6. Yes, I realise this has been discussed many times, but it is still an issue. When I went from act 5 to act 6 on the Speedrun, I felt it. Opponents tripled in health and sometimes attack, lot more complicated nodes and champions, and longer paths.
Now imagine how this would feel to an actual new player who just reached act 6. Honestly it might be a big enough difficulty increase to cause players to lose motivation and look towards other games, which is obviously bad. In addition, the previously discussed issues with side quest and level requirements means players have less areas to turn to in order to improve their roster or farm resources.
The main option for these players would be to go back and explore act 4 or 5, which is still very time consuming despite the nerfs, and if the point of these nerfs was to streamline the early game so players could get to act 6,7,8 and other content more easily, it seems a little bit contradictory? I know this was not intentional, but it is the effect that these nerfs and changes of content have had.
One comment a lot of people reply to this is the usual “get gud” kinda comment. But my reply to that is, where are they meant to get gud? Act 5 is no longer difficult and good training. Content that would be good training like Variant is locked behind level restrictions. And finally there is the brick wall of act 6, kinda meaning you can get a bit stuck.
Once again, would love to hear any developers thoughts on this, and would be willing to engage in further discussion about my thoughts and any further questions.
So that’s the end for now! Finally again thanks everyone for the support on this insane concept, it really has propelled the account forwards and hopefully reached a wide range of players, even motivating some to get to Valiant. If anyone has any further questions about the account, feel free to tag me in the thread and I’ll be willing to answer as detailed as possible.
I’ll be back in the future for more dumb challenges, so keep an eye out on the forums as that will be where I announce it first.
See you all in the future!
The thing about both of them is every time I see them do something ridiculous I always get the feeling I haven't seen the best they can do yet. Like, as crazy as this sounds, I can clearly see opportunities for improvement here.
Like, for Cantona, not for me. I'm tired just watching all of this.
And I agree yeah the run probably could have been shortened by 1-2 days, also ending with 1600 units on the account means it was definitely unoptimised.