I kinda miss the old champion design/era

I've been playing this game for a very long time, and I'm also a marvel movies fan and comics.

What dissapoints me recently is the lack of corelation between comics champion abilities and game champion abiities.

Take the old champions for example.
Human torch, just incinerate everything, and nova flame. Great adaption into the contest.

Luke Cage - indestructible, bleed immune, and hits hard. Perfect.

Moonknight (i know he's not great but thats not the point) - abilities based on moon phase, super cool concept.

Black Panther Civil War - reflective armor, and bleeds, again, very accurate to the movie.

Blade - regen, and bleed

Wolverine - regen, regen, regen, regen, bleeds, bleeds, bleeds, , just fantastic

Domino - luck based failing of abilities, and i love it

Ms. Marvel - poison immunity, energy absorbtion, makes sense.

Ghost rider - judgements, incinerate +bleed immunity, makes sense.

Buffed juggs - UNSTOPPABLE, all the time, amazing, love it.

And i could go on with many more examples.

Of course they should have abilities based on class, however they should retain some originality and comic-accurate ability.

Now let's start ranting.

New mutants released. oh, i know, add Daunted, because , ..its new ability, what else..oh yeah, add damage, thats great, oh, oh, i know, neuroshock, cuz that makes sense, doesnt it? captain britain, jean grey, cassandra nova, silver samurai, (i love them and ranked them up, but where is the original ability or character?

Skill champs. oh , lets add, idk, sleep? wow, um, what else, ..tranquilize? okay, what else? crits, make it crit.. and.. yeah, looks good to me..
(Mantis having sleep makes a lot of sense, and i appreciate that, but Mr. Knight applying sleep? what? why? and tranquilize debuffs? he should apply concussions, he hits you with a stick on the head, okay, they have injury debuffs but what is that?
I want to feel like Mr. Knight when im playing Mr Knight....i love that character,.

Science champs,... BLEED IMMUNITY, because skill champs apply bleed, and we dont want that.,. i dont know. oh yeah, add power stings to everyone, and , ruptures, and keep recycling the same abilities over and over for no reason.

Anyways, and designing a champ just to counter one specific champ in BG? thats, criminal..

i understand every class has specific abilities, so this should mean, at least they should counter a lot of champs in that class, not just 1 or 2, (haha, yelena, or serpent, or bullseye)

And i really miss the out of class matchups, just making overall good, fun champions, that you can bring anywhere.

And i also miss the fun nodes, like bleed vulnerability, flare, power shield, and so on.
i cant have fun if im reading 20 nodes like disarm, scourge, weaponize, profilerate, clarify, loose cannon, steady perseverance, all on Every champ on the path. 2-3 nodes is enough, dont give me 7-10 nodes... gives me a headache to read.

and im not a bad player, i explored all story content, all variants, most everest content, and reached gladiator a couple of times in BG. im just getting tired of bloated nodes and boring champion kits. i wanna have more fun.

Cosmic champs

Comments

CheeseMaster482

Photon and Nefaria are immune to bleed due to their body compositions. Nefaria is made of ionic energy while Photon is made of pure light.

lucianxvs

hm, i guess then it just happened so that we got more science bleed immune champs as a coincidence then, thanks for pointing that out

lucianxvs

is there a reason why Yelena is poison immune?

CheeseMaster482

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927464#Comment_2927464

Her red room conditioning. They basically gave her doses of poison until she developed an immunity to it.

lucianxvs

okay, I apologise for not getting fully informed regarding some champions, but the rest of the points still stand valid, thanks for the insight

EdisonLaw

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927464#Comment_2927464

Kabam logic

Chobbly

I used to really look forward to reading a champion's kit not just for what they'd bring by themselves but also through synergies with other champions. It was nice to look through the synergies and see where the original comic lore was filtering through.

Yukzii_II

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927464#Comment_2927464

they showed yelena the champ design philosophy in 2025 and the exposure to toxicity made her immune

Osborne

I agree.. i think this all time

Beewee

You had me until you listed domino and moon knight. Those 2 are objectively awful champ design

Stonkz

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927462#Comment_2927462

I think immunities are more balance oriented than lore even though they try to stay true to some of the characters abilities, for example think of hulk not being bleed immune compared to Luke Cage where it says in his character info (near impenetrable and bulletproof skin) when lore wise hulks skin is way stronger than of Luke Cage's

Graves_3

what about spider woman? Why is she immune to poison? I have no clue

captain_rogers

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927587#Comment_2927587

How is domino not

Mint9aer0

The amount of champs with broken defensive abilities and champs with stupid playstyles for no rewarding damage or utility. Newer characters being OP and the well known classic marvel characters we all love being the opposite

CandyCane2

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927464#Comment_2927464

to shut down archangel

THUNDERBIL

The point from OP is that every character is getting recycled with a few changes and to counter those changes a new champion is added in who is countered by another new champion and so on.

Halley

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927464#Comment_2927464

Because she's hot, and hot girl is always poisonous like snakes

...and snake is immune to poison, that's it! 😌

Screenshot_2026-02-17-06-30-20-182_com.android.chrome-edit.jpg

Mint9aer0

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927587#Comment_2927587

Domino how is she bad design she's just lucky. I have her r4 sig 200 no regrets

Cdub5071

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2927637#Comment_2927637

never harder than Luke Cage's, but hulk does have a healing factor which is slightly less than Wolverines. Hulk was always able to be cut, but not Luke Cages.

EdisonLaw

From my original post:

Obscure or lesser-known champions powerful and creative kits because they have more design freedom and no strict fan expectations to follow. Take Attuma (MCU) for example, we barely know anything about him in the movie but that opens up a lot of room for designers, like his thorns mechanic or his AAR inversion
In contrast, iconic and hyped characters like Wolverine or Sentry must stay true to their lore and image, which limits their gameplay potential, as they often have to balance lore accuracy with gameplay balance. For example, they can’t make someone like OG Iron Man a battlegrounds-dominating tank with unblockable specials and auto-block because that breaks player expectation of who he is. So they often get under-tuned or “safe” kits that please lore fans but don’t shine competitively. Every champ in mcoc has their own place to shine

Plus, this is for the greater good of the game’s lifespan. Otherwise, MCOC wouldn’t have lasted this long if every single champ was game breaking. Look at Hercules for example

lucianxvs

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929169#Comment_2929169

yeah but they buffed X-23 damage, however they nerfed her into the ground, pretty much no regen now, and now its not really lore-accurate.

MrSanguini

Luke and BPCW were buffed, BPCW very recently. Their original designs were bad. BPCW didn't even really have a notable kinetic burst like he does now, and Luke definitely did not hit hard.

You're also ignoring old champ designs that were very inaccurate to the character, like DORMAMMU not being incinerate immune. Or Ghost Rider being poisoned. Or every Yondu buff that just totally missed the mark. The list goes on.

And I don't see your issue with daunted and neuroshock; prowess was tacked on to almost every mutant from the 6 star release era, no different from daunted, and neuroshock is a debuff representing a psychic attack, it's pretty natural on the champs who have it. (How it affects robots though, idk.)

Other than that (and the corrections made by others earlier), pretty valid. I still wonder why Maker isn't bleed immune when he is explicitly stated to not have any real organs.

WednesdayLength

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929439#Comment_2929439

What do you mean every yondu buff that missed the mark lmao. His first buff was great people just didnt use him and his second one was even better

BigPoppaCBONE

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929748#Comment_2929748

Yondu's good now. His prior buffs were:

Yondu = 💩 Sandwich

1st buff: Add cheese

2nd buff: replace 💩 with salami and mayo

EdisonLaw

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929439#Comment_2929439

Like Reed Richards his skin can bleed

MrSanguini

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929748#Comment_2929748

No shade to the latest one, he had like 2 or 3 older buffs (Yondu was changed a lot) that were just not it

lucianxvs

yondu is great, i\ve been playing the 6*R5 a lot, and i can confidently say his kit is very unique,

you got healblock, weaknesses on special attacks, high block penetration, prowess invalidation

new tech champs just don't come with many unique abilities

and to highlight how versatiile yondu is, he can even do serpent (the most dangerous cosmic defender), and he is a tech champion, but he is just a great champion overall, not made to counter only 1 champ

Average_Desi

Your post just reads like the "I've represented myself as Chad and you as a soy boy"

lucianxvs

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2929813#Comment_2929813

can you elaborate? I was just exposing my thoughts , thinking out loud , and I have not directed any disrespect (apart from saying that I love domino , this probably pissed off a lot of people lol )

Beewee

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2928974#Comment_2928974

How is she not good champ design? I assume thats what youre asking. Needless to say she is probably the buggiest mess of a champ released besides rintrah. Her rng mechanics were horrible on release not to mention she was absolutely busted. She had to be nerfed a few times to where she is now and keep in mind there were no aar immune techs that were very reliable back then. Then theres her unlucky… even if you your champ is aar immune you can’t dex unlucky. Oh unless you are literally 1 of 2 champs in the game (old man logan and attuma) no aa cannot dex while unlucky nor can longshot. Theres no explanation for this either or reasoning. Needless to say theres more that goes wrong with dominos design than goes right and it was even worse on release.