Where Nebula went wrong...
SoundOfRevenge
Member Posts: 5 ★
I am writing this post for 2 reasons. First, to have a small discussion about the functionality of nebula in the current state of the game and how she could be improved without making her too OP, and also to get some feedback about how other people seem to use her, because I can't seem to figure her out.
After completing my labyrinth run and getting my tech awakening gem, I eagerly awaited to open a tech 5* crystal and try my luck at a prestiegeous featured champion. When nebula came out, and I saw her dual immunities and massive shock damage potential, I went for her. Happily to say, my 5* nebula gamble was a success, and I acquired the champion. Awakening her and taking her straight to rank 3, I began to use her in AQ for the poison path. Here it is where I encountered my issue.
Nebulas main functionality and core gameplay mechanic is her shock charges. This is not a new idea, as champions like quake have a charge they can stack up, and other champions like ant man and black panther have gameplay mechanics where stacking one buff and using an ability changes the ability of the current buffs/debuffs.
However, for nebula, which is much different from these other examples I have listed, her charge mechanic is built up by blocking. The significant damage comes after building quite a few of these (ten or more seems to suffice), but it is the issues with this mechanic that now arise. Nebulas charges are only gained every 0.9 seconds, making you have to hold block for 9 seconds in order to attain a decent amount of these charges. With the aggressive AI of the game and the massive attack values that these champions posses, this action makes nebula lose thousands of health every fight by just taking blocked hits, because unlike quake, who gets an evade buff when charging her heavy and stacking her charges, nebula does not, and it is very hard to evade while blocking at the right moment.
These issues cause a huge issue on nebulas functionality, because I find I am spending most of my time dying to block damage and not actually winning the fight. I have come up with a few solutions that I think can fix this issue, and no single one of them will make nebula an "OP god tier champ" that will make her first priority for the nerf hammer, but are rather solutions that will increase her core gameplay.
1) Make nebula take less block damage. If you increase her block proficiency, it makes it much more reliable to build up these constant charges while not worrying about losing your fight.
2) Make the charges stack faster. If nebulas charges stack in half the time, then she won't be suffering from this horrible block damage for almost twenty seconds.
3) Make nebulas shock charges more effective. Instead of capping it at 20 charges, cap it at ten charges and double their effectiveness, making it, again, so that nebula isn't constantly holding block for 80% of your fight.
4) Make her regen better. Nebulas regen really only has one good function, and that is an L3 savior, but to be honest, most of us don't spend our time begging for L3's to smack us in the face, and her regen feels like it is somewhat non existent, for the amount of time we actually see it used. Maybe nebula doesn't deserve an arc overload or an ultron like regen, but I believe that a buff to her regen mechanic in some way may prove to be the solution needed for her, as we can rely on the regen to counter the massive block damage she suffers.
5) Give her a new way to stack charges. I have no idea how a new mechanic for her charges could be made, but maybe a new way for her to stack her charges may be the best idea without messing with her other attributes. Maybe this means she gains the same evade mechanic as quake does with her heavy charges, or something else entirely.
I know this post was long, and I apologize, but I really felt like I needed to make a calm and grounded post discussing who truly has the potential to be an amazing character, but I wanted to also ask if anyone reading this has a nebula, and has found a way to play her that doesn't cause her to die in 3 fights on day 5? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks guys.
After completing my labyrinth run and getting my tech awakening gem, I eagerly awaited to open a tech 5* crystal and try my luck at a prestiegeous featured champion. When nebula came out, and I saw her dual immunities and massive shock damage potential, I went for her. Happily to say, my 5* nebula gamble was a success, and I acquired the champion. Awakening her and taking her straight to rank 3, I began to use her in AQ for the poison path. Here it is where I encountered my issue.
Nebulas main functionality and core gameplay mechanic is her shock charges. This is not a new idea, as champions like quake have a charge they can stack up, and other champions like ant man and black panther have gameplay mechanics where stacking one buff and using an ability changes the ability of the current buffs/debuffs.
However, for nebula, which is much different from these other examples I have listed, her charge mechanic is built up by blocking. The significant damage comes after building quite a few of these (ten or more seems to suffice), but it is the issues with this mechanic that now arise. Nebulas charges are only gained every 0.9 seconds, making you have to hold block for 9 seconds in order to attain a decent amount of these charges. With the aggressive AI of the game and the massive attack values that these champions posses, this action makes nebula lose thousands of health every fight by just taking blocked hits, because unlike quake, who gets an evade buff when charging her heavy and stacking her charges, nebula does not, and it is very hard to evade while blocking at the right moment.
These issues cause a huge issue on nebulas functionality, because I find I am spending most of my time dying to block damage and not actually winning the fight. I have come up with a few solutions that I think can fix this issue, and no single one of them will make nebula an "OP god tier champ" that will make her first priority for the nerf hammer, but are rather solutions that will increase her core gameplay.
1) Make nebula take less block damage. If you increase her block proficiency, it makes it much more reliable to build up these constant charges while not worrying about losing your fight.
2) Make the charges stack faster. If nebulas charges stack in half the time, then she won't be suffering from this horrible block damage for almost twenty seconds.
3) Make nebulas shock charges more effective. Instead of capping it at 20 charges, cap it at ten charges and double their effectiveness, making it, again, so that nebula isn't constantly holding block for 80% of your fight.
4) Make her regen better. Nebulas regen really only has one good function, and that is an L3 savior, but to be honest, most of us don't spend our time begging for L3's to smack us in the face, and her regen feels like it is somewhat non existent, for the amount of time we actually see it used. Maybe nebula doesn't deserve an arc overload or an ultron like regen, but I believe that a buff to her regen mechanic in some way may prove to be the solution needed for her, as we can rely on the regen to counter the massive block damage she suffers.
5) Give her a new way to stack charges. I have no idea how a new mechanic for her charges could be made, but maybe a new way for her to stack her charges may be the best idea without messing with her other attributes. Maybe this means she gains the same evade mechanic as quake does with her heavy charges, or something else entirely.
I know this post was long, and I apologize, but I really felt like I needed to make a calm and grounded post discussing who truly has the potential to be an amazing character, but I wanted to also ask if anyone reading this has a nebula, and has found a way to play her that doesn't cause her to die in 3 fights on day 5? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks guys.
4
Comments
This...
But nothing will change, they've made their money on her already and everything else only generates costs, which is why they won't do it. They simply don't care enough about quality...I mean at least this much is clear!!!
This catch is a balance that Kabam game-designers/dev wish to maintain, else Nebula would be too OP.
As rightly mentioned by severedtrevor, this is the best way to use her.