If I were to get into Dani moonstar, I'm afraid I'd have to write a long ass comment.
To put down, her biggest problem other than her overall design just being the embodiment of a total FLAW, is that she has always been unreliable and inconsistent.
That's my rank 2 vs Winter soldier. Impressive right?, well then take her one more fight deep and try her against captain marvel and she dissapoints nearly doubling that time. She has always been unreliable because you can get GREAT damage sometimes when she crits and then turn off the class advantage and she just pummels down because her crit rate is TREMENDOUSLY TOO LOW FOR A MUTANT THAT RELIES ON CRITTING. That is why I barely ever select her as an attacker in BG's.
I wanted to be cheeky and skip the sp1 in a random BG match against dust. I thought to myself maybe Dani has nuke potential (keep in mind she was r2 vs a r5 dust). Dust didn't even glance the special attack Dani just refused to crit. Dani couldn't give me ONE SINGLE CRIT even with the gambit relic. The fight ended up taking 70+ seconds.
Obviously, she's a lot more reliable than mutants like bishop but still that's not saying much because even I still use bishop sometimes when I have no other options and he can still get me wins against bullseyes and onslaughts (during tie break matchups).
*Her rotation has always BEEN TOO STRICT. She relies on combo meter, she has no combo shield. Build up to 9 hits in the combo and accidentally take a hit to the face. EVERYTHING IS GONE. Now you have alot of power and you need to hit 10 times again to get your illusion. If you decide to throw an extra sp1 so you can make up for the mistake you made, you cash out your illusion and you need 5 to get the overlord. You get what I'm saying???
Imagine if dazzlers dazzling dash required you to get 10 hits in your combo meter (not land 10 hits but just to get 10 hits in your combo meter). She's be SOOOO MUCH WORSE.
There are too many things she needs to lineup and too many factors that can disrupt her. She also doesn't work with a lot of node eg, - Nodes giving you too much power: if you get to your Sp2 without enough ramp, you've wasted it, if you decide to throw an SP1 to get rid of too much power, you've lost your ramp, if you get to the Sp2 and don't have the 10 hits on your combo meter you miss out on 50% of her damage.
- Nodes not giving you enough power - if anything tampers with her power, you won't be able to line up your illusion with your Sp2 and you lose out on 50% of your damage.
Her rotation is so strict that you absolutely cannot play around defensive mechanics.
And even if you do everything right, there's still a possibility that the Sp2 DOES NOT CRIT which makes her unreliable for punching up or even equal ranks as I said earlier (r2 vs r5 dust).
I didn't even talk about how she relies on miss which MAKES HER TERRIBLE for her target matchups or how she relies on AI cooperation as the AI can decide to just throw 2 hits into your phase which means you've wasted your illusion.
Overall, she's just not reliable to win fights that ACTUALLY MATTER which is why she doesn't really get respect out of the majority of the player base.
Edit- I think if she got released after dazzler who has set the STANDARD for what a GREAT MUTANT attacker (who does damage through specials) should be, she'd be alot better and her flaws would be greatly minimized because I think she was the stepping stone for dazzler and the devs have learned a thing or 2 since her release.
The rebalance team did nothing for her but hopefully she can get a buff sometime in the future.
Additionally, another one of her biggest flaws is that she was designed to counter Nick Fury with her duped ability. But it doesn't even work 100% of the time. Meanwhile we got champs like buffed Deadpool X-Force and Count Nefaria who counter Nick even better than the one champion designed to counter him.
Her ability not working 100% of the time doesn't make her a bad counter. She's also not the only champion designed to counter him, peni and toad already existed
Well she was specifically designed to counter him via the marked passive.
No she wasn't, the marked passive was never meant to or explained as the way to counter fury. Her nick fury counter is him purifying debuffs and replacing them with neuroshocks
But still she was still designed to be a counter nonetheless
True. But it's undeniable that she was designed badly.
Nick's LMD is immune to AAR, so it's immune to Marked.
With five or more charges, he counters Miss, so she can't build Neural Arrows reliably (she has the same issue Vs Serpent)
He purifies all effects when the LMD activates; so she has to re-inflict Neuroshocks to stop him breaking: unfortunately she needs either very high Sig, or a high number of Neural Arrows (see point 2) to reliably stop this happening.
If I were to get into Dani moonstar, I'm afraid I'd have to write a long ass comment.
To put down, her biggest problem other than her overall design just being the embodiment of a total FLAW, is that she has always been unreliable and inconsistent.
That's my rank 2 vs Winter soldier. Impressive right?, well then take her one more fight deep and try her against captain marvel and she dissapoints nearly doubling that time. She has always been unreliable because you can get GREAT damage sometimes when she crits and then turn off the class advantage and she just pummels down because her crit rate is TREMENDOUSLY TOO LOW FOR A MUTANT THAT RELIES ON CRITTING. That is why I barely ever select her as an attacker in BG's.
I wanted to be cheeky and skip the sp1 in a random BG match against dust. I thought to myself maybe Dani has nuke potential (keep in mind she was r2 vs a r5 dust). Dust didn't even glance the special attack Dani just refused to crit. Dani couldn't give me ONE SINGLE CRIT even with the gambit relic. The fight ended up taking 70+ seconds.
Obviously, she's a lot more reliable than mutants like bishop but still that's not saying much because even I still use bishop sometimes when I have no other options and he can still get me wins against bullseyes and onslaughts (during tie break matchups).
*Her rotation has always BEEN TOO STRICT. She relies on combo meter, she has no combo shield. Build up to 9 hits in the combo and accidentally take a hit to the face. EVERYTHING IS GONE. Now you have alot of power and you need to hit 10 times again to get your illusion. If you decide to throw an extra sp1 so you can make up for the mistake you made, you cash out your illusion and you need 5 to get the overlord. You get what I'm saying???
Imagine if dazzlers dazzling dash required you to get 10 hits in your combo meter (not land 10 hits but just to get 10 hits in your combo meter). She's be SOOOO MUCH WORSE.
There are too many things she needs to lineup and too many factors that can disrupt her. She also doesn't work with a lot of node eg, - Nodes giving you too much power: if you get to your Sp2 without enough ramp, you've wasted it, if you decide to throw an SP1 to get rid of too much power, you've lost your ramp, if you get to the Sp2 and don't have the 10 hits on your combo meter you miss out on 50% of her damage.
- Nodes not giving you enough power - if anything tampers with her power, you won't be able to line up your illusion with your Sp2 and you lose out on 50% of your damage.
Her rotation is so strict that you absolutely cannot play around defensive mechanics.
And even if you do everything right, there's still a possibility that the Sp2 DOES NOT CRIT which makes her unreliable for punching up or even equal ranks as I said earlier (r2 vs r5 dust).
I didn't even talk about how she relies on miss which MAKES HER TERRIBLE for her target matchups or how she relies on AI cooperation as the AI can decide to just throw 2 hits into your phase which means you've wasted your illusion.
Overall, she's just not reliable to win fights that ACTUALLY MATTER which is why she doesn't really get respect out of the majority of the player base.
Edit- I think if she got released after dazzler who has set the STANDARD for what a GREAT MUTANT attacker (who does damage through specials) should be, she'd be alot better and her flaws would be greatly minimized because I think she was the stepping stone for dazzler and the devs have learned a thing or 2 since her release.
The rebalance team did nothing for her but hopefully she can get a buff sometime in the future.
Additionally, another one of her biggest flaws is that she was designed to counter Nick Fury with her duped ability. But it doesn't even work 100% of the time. Meanwhile we got champs like buffed Deadpool X-Force and Count Nefaria who counter Nick even better than the one champion designed to counter him.
Her ability not working 100% of the time doesn't make her a bad counter. She's also not the only champion designed to counter him, peni and toad already existed
Well she was specifically designed to counter him via the marked passive.
No she wasn't, the marked passive was never meant to or explained as the way to counter fury. Her nick fury counter is him purifying debuffs and replacing them with neuroshocks
But still she was still designed to be a counter nonetheless
And she does counter him, you just have to play it a specific way. Spiral still needs to fight serpent a specific way in order to be a counter, don't see anyone calling her a bad counter
I think the reason why she's a "bad" counter is because Nick Fury counters parts of her kit (specifically the falter).
In contrast, Deadpool X-Force's kit or playstyle isn't countered by Nick Fury's mechanics. Serpent doesn't counter anything specifically in Spiral's kit.
He counters your kit if you don't play the fight right. You have to play the fight a little slower but parrying and doing 3 or 4 hits helps keep his miss counter under control and as long as you push him to sp2 there's very little issue.
She's always my pick for BG, she always wins no matter what. I love using her against Fury, just one sp2 and it's over. I took even Hulkling and she manages perfectly.
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
She's better than apocalypse
Better than Apoc? In Battlegrounds, sure but in other areas, Apoc has his horseman ability, has a ton of utility compared to her like many different debuffs, great burst damage that isn't crit reliant, etc
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
She's better than apocalypse
Better than Apoc? In Battlegrounds, sure but in other areas, Apoc has his horseman ability, has a ton of utility compared to her like many different debuffs, great burst damage that isn't crit reliant, etc
His debuffs are barely useable outside of the sp3 potency boost and even then it's only really the concussion that is utility, it takes several fights for him to be able to do any really damage even if it isn't crit reliant, his evade counter takes at least 5 evades for it to even start being reliable and his immunities are nice but while horsemen can be strong it's still at least 1 fight with a synergy before you can use it.
I like apocalypse, but I've had virtually no reason to use him for the last 2 years. Dani has incredibly easy to keep up evade and unstoppable counter, actively punishes shrug off, takes way less to get going in a fight, can mitigate a lot of damage it you time your blocks right, and even just sp1 spamming with her wracks up a lot of damage very quickly.
I recommend actually using characters instead of just going off of what youtubers said 3 or 4 years ago
This months EQ she absolutely destroyed Maestro, he couldn't go unstoppable because of the slow, and the node placed prowess on you if you glanced... One sp1, and one sp2, it was over
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
She's better than apocalypse
Better than Apoc? In Battlegrounds, sure but in other areas, Apoc has his horseman ability, has a ton of utility compared to her like many different debuffs, great burst damage that isn't crit reliant, etc
His debuffs are barely useable outside of the sp3 potency boost and even then it's only really the concussion that is utility, it takes several fights for him to be able to do any really damage even if it isn't crit reliant, his evade counter takes at least 5 evades for it to even start being reliable and his immunities are nice but while horsemen can be strong it's still at least 1 fight with a synergy before you can use it.
I like apocalypse, but I've had virtually no reason to use him for the last 2 years. Dani has incredibly easy to keep up evade and unstoppable counter, actively punishes shrug off, takes way less to get going in a fight, can mitigate a lot of damage it you time your blocks right, and even just sp1 spamming with her wracks up a lot of damage very quickly.
I recommend actually using characters instead of just going off of what youtubers said 3 or 4 years ago
Apoc's debuffs are utility in and of themselves, regardless of potency. Maintaining 4 debuffs is super easy, making him an option for that node that requires debuffs to do damage. Nodes that require a poison on at all times, he works. Nodes that requires a Bleed, he can be an option.
While he doesn't work against Cleanse, his purify reduction is still very good. Disorient immunity is a very unique thing to have, and comes in handy.
After winning a fight or two, he is stun immune while attacking, which you can take advantage of by timing it out. He can also stun on block, giving him easy access to being able to heavy.
If you the fight requires minimal hits, you can just heavy spam and do reasonably well.
Dani punishes shrug off ... but only after you've done your damage loop. So its not a Utility since it doesn't help her while she's building her damage, but rather just bonus damage. Her Evade/Unstoppable utility is less useful since you often have to trade off doing damage for maintaining that utility, because otherwise it is extremely tight to reach your SP2 and it completely falls off once you do your SP2 damage.
If/When Apoc arrives as a 7-star, he is gonna shoot back up to being one of the top Mutants. But even as a 6-star, he is still above Dani.
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
She's better than apocalypse
Better than Apoc? In Battlegrounds, sure but in other areas, Apoc has his horseman ability, has a ton of utility compared to her like many different debuffs, great burst damage that isn't crit reliant, etc
His debuffs are barely useable outside of the sp3 potency boost and even then it's only really the concussion that is utility, it takes several fights for him to be able to do any really damage even if it isn't crit reliant, his evade counter takes at least 5 evades for it to even start being reliable and his immunities are nice but while horsemen can be strong it's still at least 1 fight with a synergy before you can use it.
I like apocalypse, but I've had virtually no reason to use him for the last 2 years. Dani has incredibly easy to keep up evade and unstoppable counter, actively punishes shrug off, takes way less to get going in a fight, can mitigate a lot of damage it you time your blocks right, and even just sp1 spamming with her wracks up a lot of damage very quickly.
I recommend actually using characters instead of just going off of what youtubers said 3 or 4 years ago
Apoc's debuffs are utility in and of themselves, regardless of potency. Maintaining 4 debuffs is super easy, making him an option for that node that requires debuffs to do damage. Nodes that require a poison on at all times, he works. Nodes that requires a Bleed, he can be an option.
While he doesn't work against Cleanse, his purify reduction is still very good. Disorient immunity is a very unique thing to have, and comes in handy.
After winning a fight or two, he is stun immune while attacking, which you can take advantage of by timing it out. He can also stun on block, giving him easy access to being able to heavy.
If you the fight requires minimal hits, you can just heavy spam and do reasonably well.
Dani punishes shrug off ... but only after you've done your damage loop. So its not a Utility since it doesn't help her while she's building her damage, but rather just bonus damage. Her Evade/Unstoppable utility is less useful since you often have to trade off doing damage for maintaining that utility, because otherwise it is extremely tight to reach your SP2 and it completely falls off once you do your SP2 damage.
If/When Apoc arrives as a 7-star, he is gonna shoot back up to being one of the top Mutants. But even as a 6-star, he is still above Dani.
Are you seriously telling me that you're using apocalypse for his disorient? It is utility, but there is almost never a time where apocalypse is even close to ideal.
If you're not able to get Danis max damage while keeping up the slow then you're playing her wrong. I notice you say you need to do her damage loop in order to punish purify and by that you mean using an sp1 lol. She has much quicker access to damage, even parry stuns convert into neuroshocks, can take advantage of openings more because of her miss, and doesn't require 2 sp1s and 2 sp2s to hit her damage cap for the first 2 fights.
She's better than apocalypse now and will be better than him when he's a 7 star
1) her class is overall great 2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
She's better than apocalypse
Better than Apoc? In Battlegrounds, sure but in other areas, Apoc has his horseman ability, has a ton of utility compared to her like many different debuffs, great burst damage that isn't crit reliant, etc
His debuffs are barely useable outside of the sp3 potency boost and even then it's only really the concussion that is utility, it takes several fights for him to be able to do any really damage even if it isn't crit reliant, his evade counter takes at least 5 evades for it to even start being reliable and his immunities are nice but while horsemen can be strong it's still at least 1 fight with a synergy before you can use it.
I like apocalypse, but I've had virtually no reason to use him for the last 2 years. Dani has incredibly easy to keep up evade and unstoppable counter, actively punishes shrug off, takes way less to get going in a fight, can mitigate a lot of damage it you time your blocks right, and even just sp1 spamming with her wracks up a lot of damage very quickly.
I recommend actually using characters instead of just going off of what youtubers said 3 or 4 years ago
Apoc's debuffs are utility in and of themselves, regardless of potency. Maintaining 4 debuffs is super easy, making him an option for that node that requires debuffs to do damage. Nodes that require a poison on at all times, he works. Nodes that requires a Bleed, he can be an option.
While he doesn't work against Cleanse, his purify reduction is still very good. Disorient immunity is a very unique thing to have, and comes in handy.
After winning a fight or two, he is stun immune while attacking, which you can take advantage of by timing it out. He can also stun on block, giving him easy access to being able to heavy.
If you the fight requires minimal hits, you can just heavy spam and do reasonably well.
Dani punishes shrug off ... but only after you've done your damage loop. So its not a Utility since it doesn't help her while she's building her damage, but rather just bonus damage. Her Evade/Unstoppable utility is less useful since you often have to trade off doing damage for maintaining that utility, because otherwise it is extremely tight to reach your SP2 and it completely falls off once you do your SP2 damage.
If/When Apoc arrives as a 7-star, he is gonna shoot back up to being one of the top Mutants. But even as a 6-star, he is still above Dani.
I don't see a single player actually using Apoc. I was really hoping to get the 6* one, but after the 7* came to the game, I rather use Dani than him, even my 6*. This BG victory track Apoc would suck while Dani did amazing
Apocalypse came at a time when demand for questing was at its peak. Then, we really only had a few champs who answered the requirements for certain node interactions and utilities. His ability to buff all mutants gave him a **** ton of value and kept him relevant. But that was 2020.
Now, there are so many champions in the game who offer a wide variety of specific utility that work for different nodes that BARELY any champion is a MUST HAVE ANYMORE because if you have a large roster, you'll always have SOMEONE or a LARGE AMOUNT of options for that specific interaction.
That being said, Apocalypse as a standalone character is not GREAT. Alot of champions today are viewed by their battleground prowess (LIKE IT OR NOT) and if we go unbiased like how we hold Dani moonstar to such strict standard then same should be done for apocalypse (I don't need to go into detail about his attacking capabilities in a battlegroup setup but we all know it is not great).
He got used a bit for the mutant necropolis challenge, but I think that's about it. At best, I can see him being relocated to the same category as WAGS as he'd mostly be used for his buffs on OTHER characters.
Y'all mention how apoc comes with specific utility. I agree but at the same time there's really nothing you'd want Apoc to do or a fight you wanted Apoc to take that 5 other mutants wouldn't be able to do easier and faster.
If he did get released as a 7 star I wouldn't be surprised if he became "ONE OF THE BEST MUTANTS" again not because of how good he truly is but solely because he'd have a lot of LOUD Apoc fanboys on YouTube videos and forums over exaggerating how useful he truly is in today's meta.
She's just fun isn't she? Not every champ has to be meta relevant, I find her an absolute joy to play even if it is mostly in EQ. Mine's R2, I love her particle effects on her bow and on the "shadow" she leaves behind as she dashes back, it's great fun to watch enemies power you up by desperately flailing in your face, and her SP2 can absolutely bang. I get a lot out of playing her.
If you're looking at competitive GamePlay, AndrewTheRuff made an R3 showcase on her a long time ago, she was an early R3 for him, shows what she's capable of;
Apocalypse came at a time when demand for questing was at its peak. Then, we really only had a few champs who answered the requirements for certain node interactions and utilities. His ability to buff all mutants gave him a **** ton of value and kept him relevant. But that was 2020.
Now, there are so many champions in the game who offer a wide variety of specific utility that work for different nodes that BARELY any champion is a MUST HAVE ANYMORE because if you have a large roster, you'll always have SOMEONE or a LARGE AMOUNT of options for that specific interaction.
That being said, Apocalypse as a standalone character is not GREAT. Alot of champions today are viewed by their battleground prowess (LIKE IT OR NOT) and if we go unbiased like how we hold Dani moonstar to such strict standard then same should be done for apocalypse (I don't need to go into detail about his attacking capabilities in a battlegroup setup but we all know it is not great).
He got used a bit for the mutant necropolis challenge, but I think that's about it. At best, I can see him being relocated to the same category as WAGS as he'd mostly be used for his buffs on OTHER characters.
Y'all mention how apoc comes with specific utility. I agree but at the same time there's really nothing you'd want Apoc to do or a fight you wanted Apoc to take that 5 other mutants wouldn't be able to do easier and faster.
If he did get released as a 7 star I wouldn't be surprised if he became "ONE OF THE BEST MUTANTS" again not because of how good he truly is but solely because he'd have a lot of LOUD Apoc fanboys on YouTube videos and forums over exaggerating how useful he truly is in today's meta.
I can't agree enough on the point about holding apocalypse to the same standard as Dani. People hold her under a microscope and yeah, she's not onslaught, but she at least does something that holds value and even if you just spam sp1 she's still doing respectable damage and in any match with disorient she pops off, whereas apocalypse is the definition of a questing champion and if we count other champions that give pre fights, namely odin and galan, they're both far stronger on their own than apoc is.
I love apoc, pulling him as a 6 star from a cav nexus on black Friday 3 years ago was one of the highlights of my mcoc experience, but now he's stuck at rank 2 and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used him both standalone and for thr horseman pre fight in the last few years.
Apoc as a 7 star would 100% be a repeat of colossus when he's added in that everyone would be excited at the thought of it but as soon as they pull him as opposed to onslaught, dazzler, or dust they'll be complaining about how they have no use for him. He has a hard damage ceiling, situational utility, requires synergies to really do work and his pre fight can be used from a non leveled up 6 star.
Apocalypse came at a time when demand for questing was at its peak. Then, we really only had a few champs who answered the requirements for certain node interactions and utilities. His ability to buff all mutants gave him a **** ton of value and kept him relevant. But that was 2020.
Now, there are so many champions in the game who offer a wide variety of specific utility that work for different nodes that BARELY any champion is a MUST HAVE ANYMORE because if you have a large roster, you'll always have SOMEONE or a LARGE AMOUNT of options for that specific interaction.
That being said, Apocalypse as a standalone character is not GREAT. Alot of champions today are viewed by their battleground prowess (LIKE IT OR NOT) and if we go unbiased like how we hold Dani moonstar to such strict standard then same should be done for apocalypse (I don't need to go into detail about his attacking capabilities in a battlegroup setup but we all know it is not great).
He got used a bit for the mutant necropolis challenge, but I think that's about it. At best, I can see him being relocated to the same category as WAGS as he'd mostly be used for his buffs on OTHER characters.
Y'all mention how apoc comes with specific utility. I agree but at the same time there's really nothing you'd want Apoc to do or a fight you wanted Apoc to take that 5 other mutants wouldn't be able to do easier and faster.
If he did get released as a 7 star I wouldn't be surprised if he became "ONE OF THE BEST MUTANTS" again not because of how good he truly is but solely because he'd have a lot of LOUD Apoc fanboys on YouTube videos and forums over exaggerating how useful he truly is in today's meta.
I can't agree enough on the point about holding apocalypse to the same standard as Dani. People hold her under a microscope and yeah, she's not onslaught, but she at least does something that holds value and even if you just spam sp1 she's still doing respectable damage and in any match with disorient she pops off, whereas apocalypse is the definition of a questing champion and if we count other champions that give pre fights, namely odin and galan, they're both far stronger on their own than apoc is.
I love apoc, pulling him as a 6 star from a cav nexus on black Friday 3 years ago was one of the highlights of my mcoc experience, but now he's stuck at rank 2 and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used him both standalone and for thr horseman pre fight in the last few years.
Apoc as a 7 star would 100% be a repeat of colossus when he's added in that everyone would be excited at the thought of it but as soon as they pull him as opposed to onslaught, dazzler, or dust they'll be complaining about how they have no use for him. He has a hard damage ceiling, situational utility, requires synergies to really do work and his pre fight can be used from a non leveled up 6 star.
Unless he gets changes that make him viable for BGs, such as his weak signature ability, which is the only bad thing about his kit currently.
Apocalypse came at a time when demand for questing was at its peak. Then, we really only had a few champs who answered the requirements for certain node interactions and utilities. His ability to buff all mutants gave him a **** ton of value and kept him relevant. But that was 2020.
Now, there are so many champions in the game who offer a wide variety of specific utility that work for different nodes that BARELY any champion is a MUST HAVE ANYMORE because if you have a large roster, you'll always have SOMEONE or a LARGE AMOUNT of options for that specific interaction.
That being said, Apocalypse as a standalone character is not GREAT. Alot of champions today are viewed by their battleground prowess (LIKE IT OR NOT) and if we go unbiased like how we hold Dani moonstar to such strict standard then same should be done for apocalypse (I don't need to go into detail about his attacking capabilities in a battlegroup setup but we all know it is not great).
He got used a bit for the mutant necropolis challenge, but I think that's about it. At best, I can see him being relocated to the same category as WAGS as he'd mostly be used for his buffs on OTHER characters.
Y'all mention how apoc comes with specific utility. I agree but at the same time there's really nothing you'd want Apoc to do or a fight you wanted Apoc to take that 5 other mutants wouldn't be able to do easier and faster.
If he did get released as a 7 star I wouldn't be surprised if he became "ONE OF THE BEST MUTANTS" again not because of how good he truly is but solely because he'd have a lot of LOUD Apoc fanboys on YouTube videos and forums over exaggerating how useful he truly is in today's meta.
I can't agree enough on the point about holding apocalypse to the same standard as Dani. People hold her under a microscope and yeah, she's not onslaught, but she at least does something that holds value and even if you just spam sp1 she's still doing respectable damage and in any match with disorient she pops off, whereas apocalypse is the definition of a questing champion and if we count other champions that give pre fights, namely odin and galan, they're both far stronger on their own than apoc is.
I love apoc, pulling him as a 6 star from a cav nexus on black Friday 3 years ago was one of the highlights of my mcoc experience, but now he's stuck at rank 2 and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used him both standalone and for thr horseman pre fight in the last few years.
Apoc as a 7 star would 100% be a repeat of colossus when he's added in that everyone would be excited at the thought of it but as soon as they pull him as opposed to onslaught, dazzler, or dust they'll be complaining about how they have no use for him. He has a hard damage ceiling, situational utility, requires synergies to really do work and his pre fight can be used from a non leveled up 6 star.
Unless he gets changes that make him viable for BGs, such as his weak signature ability, which is the only bad thing about his kit currently.
Which he won't be getting. The only way he would be viable in bgs would be if he started with 4 persistent charges and even then he would be like, OK at best
Comments
- Nick's LMD is immune to AAR, so it's immune to Marked.
- With five or more charges, he counters Miss, so she can't build Neural Arrows reliably (she has the same issue Vs Serpent)
- He purifies all effects when the LMD activates; so she has to re-inflict Neuroshocks to stop him breaking: unfortunately she needs either very high Sig, or a high number of Neural Arrows (see point 2) to reliably stop this happening.
Basically, whilst I like and enjoy her as a champion (mines r2, and I enjoy her) she's just very bad at countering 'cheat death' mechanics, which is basically meant to be her while schtick. Read this thread for more details, if you want to: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/357668/dani-is-she-actually-good-at-what-shes-supposed-to-do1) her class is overall great
2) content these days goes hard on utility
She isn't bad on her own - she has some limited utility and her damage is really good, but that just isn't enough these days. She pales in comparison to Mr. Sinister, Apoc, Onslaught etc.
I like apocalypse, but I've had virtually no reason to use him for the last 2 years. Dani has incredibly easy to keep up evade and unstoppable counter, actively punishes shrug off, takes way less to get going in a fight, can mitigate a lot of damage it you time your blocks right, and even just sp1 spamming with her wracks up a lot of damage very quickly.
I recommend actually using characters instead of just going off of what youtubers said 3 or 4 years ago
While he doesn't work against Cleanse, his purify reduction is still very good. Disorient immunity is a very unique thing to have, and comes in handy.
After winning a fight or two, he is stun immune while attacking, which you can take advantage of by timing it out. He can also stun on block, giving him easy access to being able to heavy.
If you the fight requires minimal hits, you can just heavy spam and do reasonably well.
Dani punishes shrug off ... but only after you've done your damage loop. So its not a Utility since it doesn't help her while she's building her damage, but rather just bonus damage. Her Evade/Unstoppable utility is less useful since you often have to trade off doing damage for maintaining that utility, because otherwise it is extremely tight to reach your SP2 and it completely falls off once you do your SP2 damage.
If/When Apoc arrives as a 7-star, he is gonna shoot back up to being one of the top Mutants. But even as a 6-star, he is still above Dani.
If you're not able to get Danis max damage while keeping up the slow then you're playing her wrong. I notice you say you need to do her damage loop in order to punish purify and by that you mean using an sp1 lol. She has much quicker access to damage, even parry stuns convert into neuroshocks, can take advantage of openings more because of her miss, and doesn't require 2 sp1s and 2 sp2s to hit her damage cap for the first 2 fights.
She's better than apocalypse now and will be better than him when he's a 7 star
Is Moonstar
Amazing BG defender
This BG victory track Apoc would suck while Dani did amazing
Then, we really only had a few champs who answered the requirements for certain node interactions and utilities. His ability to buff all mutants gave him a **** ton of value and kept him relevant. But that was 2020.
Now, there are so many champions in the game who offer a wide variety of specific utility that work for different nodes that BARELY any champion is a MUST HAVE ANYMORE because if you have a large roster, you'll always have SOMEONE or a LARGE AMOUNT of options for that specific interaction.
That being said, Apocalypse as a standalone character is not GREAT. Alot of champions today are viewed by their battleground prowess (LIKE IT OR NOT) and if we go unbiased like how we hold Dani moonstar to such strict standard then same should be done for apocalypse (I don't need to go into detail about his attacking capabilities in a battlegroup setup but we all know it is not great).
He got used a bit for the mutant necropolis challenge, but I think that's about it.
At best, I can see him being relocated to the same category as WAGS as he'd mostly be used for his buffs on OTHER characters.
Y'all mention how apoc comes with specific utility. I agree but at the same time there's really nothing you'd want Apoc to do or a fight you wanted Apoc to take that 5 other mutants wouldn't be able to do easier and faster.
If he did get released as a 7 star I wouldn't be surprised if he became "ONE OF THE BEST MUTANTS" again not because of how good he truly is but solely because he'd have a lot of LOUD Apoc fanboys on YouTube videos and forums over exaggerating how useful he truly is in today's meta.
If you're looking at competitive GamePlay, AndrewTheRuff made an R3 showcase on her a long time ago, she was an early R3 for him, shows what she's capable of;
I love apoc, pulling him as a 6 star from a cav nexus on black Friday 3 years ago was one of the highlights of my mcoc experience, but now he's stuck at rank 2 and I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've used him both standalone and for thr horseman pre fight in the last few years.
Apoc as a 7 star would 100% be a repeat of colossus when he's added in that everyone would be excited at the thought of it but as soon as they pull him as opposed to onslaught, dazzler, or dust they'll be complaining about how they have no use for him. He has a hard damage ceiling, situational utility, requires synergies to really do work and his pre fight can be used from a non leveled up 6 star.