Is Serpent's sig ability actually bad for everest questing?

altavista · December 12

I just took my unduped Serpent into the Necropolis for the Carina challenge. Hadn't really used him before, but had previously heard that once ramped he does really good damage. I found that yes, he does good damage with good survivability (the reduced burst damage is a great safety net, as is turning off unblockable).

But, I realized that if my Serpent was actually duped, I would be worse off.

You start the quest with 1 Dread (granting fury buff). You have to win 2 fights to get maximum Dread (and get a fury buff that is max 3 times stronger).

When duped, if you would be KO'd, all Dread is consumed for Death Immunity. While this means you'll have 5-8 seconds to do more damage without getting KO'd, and possibily surviving longer than that, it means that you are still set back (have 0-1 Dread depending on if you win the fight after it triggers). At 0 Dread, theoretically that means you don't start the fight with any Fury buff bonus (unless I am reading it wrong).

For players that are skilled, it seems like Death Immunity is a worthwhile ability since these players are likely able to turn things around after their one mistake and win the fight.

For players that tend to die several times per fight in these longform content, you are unlikely to maintain and build your Dread charges. Heck, even though Cap Britain was easy, I got tripped up by the reverse controls early in the fight, so I likely wouldn't have won the fight even if I had Death Immunity to let me keep fighting afterwards. As such, a single fight becomes more of a slog if you die once, and then you have to win two more fights after that without dying, in order to be able to maximize the attack power that an unduped Serpent can easily maintain.

Am I misinterpreting the Dread and Sig ability, or am I correct to think that a duped Serpent is worse than unduped Serpent for everest content?

Gamer · December 12

I always hav my furry with my 6 star was not a fun run but not the worst either

Squidopus · December 12

I took my duped 6* Serpent out on a right side Necro run, and I did find the fact I couldn’t build dread annoying. However, that was mostly because losing dread meant losing out on some of his utility/bulk mechanics. In particular, I wanted to use his 60% instant damaging effect resistance to use against Spidey99, but since maintaining dread was impractical I ended up just using Kate for him. I don’t think the fury buff potency loss is that big a deal because his sig also gives him increased attack rating per culforce charge, and at max sig this bonus is about equal to the max dread fury buff.

I was planning on taking my unduped 7* r2 Serpent instead of my maxed ascended duped 6* for my last path (I probably won’t now because I want to do a Carina’s challenge, but I was going to), but honestly this was mostly motivated by the 7* having higher challenger rating than the dupe being a “problem”. Tbh the dread mechanics probably wouldn’t have helped me all that much in my previous run anyways.

Squidopus · December 12

Oh yeah it’s also worth mentioning that if you’re using a duped Serpent and really want to maintain his Dread, you can quit out of a fight when you think you’re gonna die instead of just letting yourself die, since this doesn’t let you consume dread to trigger death immunity. It’s not super practical though because you often can’t judge when exactly you’re about to die and if you accidentally trigger death immunity once then all the effort is basically wasted.

Wicket329 · December 12

Squidopus said:
Oh yeah it’s also worth mentioning that if you’re using a duped Serpent and really want to maintain his Dread, you can quit out of a fight when you think you’re gonna die instead of just letting yourself die, since this doesn’t let you consume dread to trigger death immunity. It’s not super practical though because you often can’t judge when exactly you’re about to die and if you accidentally trigger death immunity once then all the effort is basically wasted.

Additionally worth noting that if your opponent has already triggered their sp3, then you’re too late to quit out (did my god run last night, sad serpent noises were made).

Harryatomix · December 12

Unduped serpent helped a lot for me in necropolis carina challenge

EdisonLaw · December 12

Well the death immunity shouldn’t be used like Herc’s, it’s mainly used as a last resort cheat death in case you mess up. But Serpent is actually a very tanky champion

captain_rogers · December 12

On the flipside, his death immunity actually heals you (if you get hit by sp3 in necro) which is a life saver and you can literally take out like 10-20% more health even after eating a sp3.

EdisonLaw · December 12

captain_rogers said:
On the flipside, his death immunity actually heals you (if you get hit by sp3 in necro) which is a life saver and you can literally take out like 10-20% more health even after eating a sp3.

But you do lose some of your damage though.

Is Serpent's sig ability actually bad for everest questing?

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