Enchantress Review: How She Could Be Better and Simpler
J0eySn0w
Member Posts: 980 ★★★★
A long read, but a sincere one, plus it took me some time to put it together. 
I pulled Enchantress from the Titan Crystal, and after spending some time playing her, here is my honest review. I think the idea was great, but the execution was lacking. I don’t agree with those who outright condemn the character design. The designer(s) tried to create something unique and valuable, but as I mentioned, the execution could have been better. I hope the balance team can take a proper look at her and make her more practical and realistic in the hands of players. I can only imagine the time and effort that went into her design. It would be sad to see all that effort go to waste if her primary role ends up being mainly for defense. Most of us players would like to enjoy using the character as well. This is attack-only feedback. We’ve had several characters with abilities specifically designed for either attack or defense, so this doesn’t have to translate to defense.
The Drawback?
She’s way too complicated to play in terms of spells, memorializing, choosing the right utility, and even ensuring that you’re using the right one. She has a total of 9 spell combinations, 10 if awakened. Are all of them really that useful considering their maximum potency? I’d say no.
What can be done?
Personally, I’d settle for one really potent spell for each category (Evocation, Transmutation, and Enchantment). This way, she wouldn’t be a jack of all trades, master of none. It would either make her effective for the match or not. This also reduces the chances of accidentally applying the wrong spell, debuff, or ability for a matchup due to mistakes and subsequent frustration. I don’t have a strong preference regarding which spells remain, but here are my suggestions:
• Evocation: Coldsnap and Frostbite, which in turn counters evade. The damage and duration can be increased. If the defender is immune, apply Incinerate (plasma or whatever).
• Transmutation: Evade attacks that would knock her down, regenerate X% of block damage, and add reverse controls.
• Enchantment: I like a potent Atrophy passive, and similar to Mojo, it could deal a small amount of damage whenever a buff expires. (Alternatively, a potent neutralize could work.)
This would simplify the activation of spells. You could make it as easy as using one spell in each direction, such as one starting with double or going in an upward direction, another downward, and the last sideways.
Examples:
⬆️⬆️⬆️ ⬇️⬇️⬇️ ⬅️⬅️⬅️
⬆️⬆️⬇️ ⬇️⬇️⬆️ ⬅️⬅️➡️
The awakened ability spell, Charm, can remain the same.
Additionally, a slight numbers tune-up would go a long way in helping her in short to medium matchups. The trade-off could be capping the damage per spell from her specials or reducing the damage of subsequent spells after a certain threshold. Regardless, with the above suggestions, I believe she would still be easier to use compared to how she is presently.
These are just my thoughts. What do you think? Does she need to be more straightforward to use?
I pulled Enchantress from the Titan Crystal, and after spending some time playing her, here is my honest review. I think the idea was great, but the execution was lacking. I don’t agree with those who outright condemn the character design. The designer(s) tried to create something unique and valuable, but as I mentioned, the execution could have been better. I hope the balance team can take a proper look at her and make her more practical and realistic in the hands of players. I can only imagine the time and effort that went into her design. It would be sad to see all that effort go to waste if her primary role ends up being mainly for defense. Most of us players would like to enjoy using the character as well. This is attack-only feedback. We’ve had several characters with abilities specifically designed for either attack or defense, so this doesn’t have to translate to defense.
The Drawback?
She’s way too complicated to play in terms of spells, memorializing, choosing the right utility, and even ensuring that you’re using the right one. She has a total of 9 spell combinations, 10 if awakened. Are all of them really that useful considering their maximum potency? I’d say no.
What can be done?
Personally, I’d settle for one really potent spell for each category (Evocation, Transmutation, and Enchantment). This way, she wouldn’t be a jack of all trades, master of none. It would either make her effective for the match or not. This also reduces the chances of accidentally applying the wrong spell, debuff, or ability for a matchup due to mistakes and subsequent frustration. I don’t have a strong preference regarding which spells remain, but here are my suggestions:
• Evocation: Coldsnap and Frostbite, which in turn counters evade. The damage and duration can be increased. If the defender is immune, apply Incinerate (plasma or whatever).
• Transmutation: Evade attacks that would knock her down, regenerate X% of block damage, and add reverse controls.
• Enchantment: I like a potent Atrophy passive, and similar to Mojo, it could deal a small amount of damage whenever a buff expires. (Alternatively, a potent neutralize could work.)
This would simplify the activation of spells. You could make it as easy as using one spell in each direction, such as one starting with double or going in an upward direction, another downward, and the last sideways.
Examples:
⬆️⬆️⬆️ ⬇️⬇️⬇️ ⬅️⬅️⬅️
⬆️⬆️⬇️ ⬇️⬇️⬆️ ⬅️⬅️➡️
The awakened ability spell, Charm, can remain the same.
Additionally, a slight numbers tune-up would go a long way in helping her in short to medium matchups. The trade-off could be capping the damage per spell from her specials or reducing the damage of subsequent spells after a certain threshold. Regardless, with the above suggestions, I believe she would still be easier to use compared to how she is presently.
These are just my thoughts. What do you think? Does she need to be more straightforward to use?
5
Comments
Ultimately I do think her offensive usage is like a worse version of Wong, since she takes a little longer to ramp up and isn't able to get her utility online consistently until a bit later. However, I'm assuming this gets alleviated a bit once she's duped, and I really want to dupe mine. I think it's balanced for her to only be viable in questing content, since if she could be used on BG offense she would be ridiculously overpowered given her defensive strength. I do wish she could ramp just a little faster while spamming s1s (something like a weak version of Chavez's power gain) but she's fine enough as is if you're only doing everest content, as she is seemingly designed for
Edit:
This is coming from someone who prefer things a bit more simple but effective. Having a mini game in a champion design is already for me extra and I’m fine with that as long as it simpler. Maybe Kabam is testing their potential and limits as to what more they can do with champions and this game as a whole.
Also you can’t really be going for a slippery slope argument right? This isn’t gonna be the norm, Kabam’s pushing the envelope here but you’re crazy if you’re trying to fearmonger that Enchantress is gonna be what every champ looks like in the future. Maybe we’ll get other champs of her caliber but it’ll be a rarity rather than commonplace.
I get it. Your edit clarifies that it’s your preference to have simplicity. But I’m sure it’s others’ preference that they finally have a champ that does something unique and feeds the fantasy of “ultimate wizard with a spell for everything”. We’ve got enough room in this game that I think it’s more than fair to have some champs with complex playstyles that require mastery to use rather than strictly enforcing that every champ be easy. I don’t gel with a lot of champs’ gameplay, such as CGR. It doesn’t mean I want them changed, I just don’t use them. That’s kinda the mindset you have to have with some champs in this game.
Also applies to the the spells from synergies, so you can get a 60% petrify and/or a 60% decelerate as well.
Here’s an example - I brought her as part of my 3 person team to handle the Cosmic path in the Jack’s Hunt SQ with Ikaris, Gladiator, and Heimdall. Nodes included Kinetic Transferance, armor buff after special, and plasma debuff based on your basic hits after they hit a certain level of armor buffs.
So essentially the counter is to control their armor buffs levels, control their power to minimize the specials they throw, and try to minimize blocked hits so they don’t gain too much power.
I thought, should be interesting to see how this jack of all trades Enchantress does here since she has power stealing, she has three ways of controlling buffs, and she doesn’t need a WTB as part of her playstyle.
Disclaimer: I’m not that well versed in using her and mine is unduped so I dont have access to the charmed spell.
Ikaris - To start, her power steal doesnt do enough to keep up with his energize so you’re not really throwing more specials than him. Just throwing Mediums to avoid him gaining Energize buffs just doesnt feel good either since she does so little damage. Atrophy is pointless so I focused on Neutralize and Nullify. At such low potency and the fact that the nullify only happens on a timer when I am close, meant that his buffs weren’t really under control, and I still wasn’t power stealing enough. After using an SP2, there certainly did seem to be more of a neutralize benefit, but I still wasn’t quite controlling the buffs or the power. One slip up by me later, he leaps to an SP2, still gains the Unblockable buff, and takes me out with his unblockable hits. I switched over to BWCV and she handled the rest without any effort.
Gladiator - His personal buffs are immune to Neutralize but not the nodes, but still I figured that Enchantress would work a lot better than a neutralize champion. I started the fight focusing on doing Nullify and Atrophy and then SP2. While I was keeping his confidence buffs from growing too much, at no point did I feel in control of the fight. Atrophy did shorten his Unstoppable timer, but not enough to where I wasn’t still required to do several evades, nor was it enough to where I could be close enough to nullify some buffs during unstoppable. The power stealing again wasn’t enough to counter Kinetic transferance and minimize the amount of times he threw SP1 and went unstoppable.
Heimdall - she could do this fight, but the undependability of Neutralize meant that I would have to contend with autoblocks after his SP1 from time to time. I did half the fight, quit out, and finished the last half with Rintrah much quicker and much more painlessly.
Yes there are big caveats - duped/Charmed debuff focus helps a lot, or my skill level could be a lot higher - but at the end of the day, Enchantress never felt like she was controlling the fight. Despite having so many spells signifying fights she can handle, it seemed far better to use another champion with dedicated focus.