Clarity for 7* Ascension and its Future
I’m someone that actually enjoys a larger part of the base ascension pool than most people, and was pretty excited about ascension when it was announced and explained. I can actually see the creative intent that Kabam had for 7* ascension, but I think they just handled its release and some aspects very poorly. Even though I like the implementation of it, I can’t ignore the valid concerns that most of the players have. In this post I’m going over some things that I think would help make ascension more appreciated, and eliminate some of the concerns people have. This isn’t meant to be a list of solutions for ascension, just focusing on some of the biggest points people don’t understand or are worried about. I’m just asking for Kabam to provide clarity on a few issues if and when they can.
The big reason why ascension was released alongside r5s, and not after r6s, was because it’s not going to be just one rank like with 4-6* ascension. It’s meant to be something that can allow players to use a wider variety of champions and actually shake up the meta, which has become very one dimensional and stale as of late. The large majority of people use the same 10-20 champs in a game filled with over 300, which ascension could help to reconcile. It’s also meant to elongate the 7* lifespan much further than with 6*, assuming that eventually we will have ascension available for most, if not all, champions. Additionally, it’s a way to keep providing exciting crystals, because let’s be honest there’s only so many more 6* locked champions before they run out. Providing ascension for some of the popular champs later on will just give everyone another chase item.
However, the lack of clarity and future planning that the playerbase can currently see has honestly made this system seem a lot worse than it could be.
1. New Champ Ascension Release Model
According to Kabam, there is no method for anyone to obtain new release champions’ ascension for free until 2027. This completely goes against the new champion release models used in the past that players actually got behind. The 5* featured gave you a 20% chance or so to pull a new Blade, for example. The 6* featured gave you a chance to pull one of six new champs alongside a variety of base pool/rare champs. The titan crystal gives you a high chance of pulling any of the new 6 featured champs, with a guarantee of at least 1/18 of the newest champs from the last year. The reason that all of these models work is because you are actually given a realistic chance of pulling the new champs or even just the one you’re targeting.
If there had been a clear stated plan from the beginning for releasing new champ ascensions, and the wait to acquire them hadn’t been so long, maybe ascension would’ve been received better from the start. To me, it just seems like a normal and smart process to clearly plan out all pieces of something before beginning to implement it. Maybe there is a plan for ascending new champs already, but the exact wording in the livestream made it seem as though there wasn’t.
The words “become available to earn in some form in 2027” do not suggest that there is a plan already created yet. From the player’s standpoint, this worries us because it seems like a cash grab rather than a normal process in this game. There has always been a monetary implementation for new champ releases, we’ve had phc’s, grandmaster crystals, cavaliers, valiants, etc. This feels worse than that, because unlike before there appears to be no clear plan for how everyone else obtains these ascension materials after. If ascension for new champs had been gatekeeped until 2027 for everyone, it probably wouldn’t be a problem. The issue is that such a big gap exists between when people can pay to acquire these new ascended champs, and also obtain them later on for free.
At the very least, I think it would sit better with players to know that there is a plan in place. The ideal scenario would have been knowing there is a way to attain these ascensions for free later in 2026, and not having to wait a full year. This entire system and information around it has also put a stain on the rest of ascension in many other players’ minds. Regardless of whether 7* ascension was perfectly or horribly released, this concept pulls it down for many people.
2. The Luck Required for Each Ascension Rank
All that we know about the future of ascension is that it will contain 11 ranks in total. This wouldn’t be a problem if ascension was just the same as 8*, but it’s not. We don’t just need a new catalyst/level of dust to reach future ranks of ascension. One of the biggest concerns I’ve seen are that we’re going to need to pull 3 ascension tokens for Bishop for example, to l3 ascend him, 4 tokens for l4, and so on. This raises a huge concern for people, because right now it seems like we’re going to need a great amount of luck to hit that 1/30 chance so many times, and actually continue to attain higher ranks of ascension. I’m sure these ascension tokens will become more obtainable over time, possibly even through selectors, but there is no clarity on that either.
The reason why this specifically is such a problem, is due to the fact that the future ranks of our ascension may be entirely luck based. In the past, you just needed to obtain generic catalysts (basic or alpha), or class catalysts. In both cases, you were able to choose who to rank up between a pool of characters, even with those pools being smaller in some cases with class catalysts. Requiring specific ascension tokens, and seemingly extremely high amounts of them for future ranks, takes a lot out of the element of choice that is so fun in rankups. In the past, you’d only have to pull a champ once (or twice if you wanted the dupe) to be able to rank them up further. In order to get a champ to ascension 11, if the rank requirements scale as they are shown now, would require getting lucky on one specific champion 66 times.
66 times to pull one champion is an absurdly high number in comparison to the 1-2 times it took before. The amount of luck required to pull these 66 tokens might decrease over time. The future ascension ranks might not require scaling amounts of tokens, or none altogether. The requirements for reaching future ascension ranks might be dependent on something other than specific champion tokens. But the big problem is, we have no clarity on the answer to any of these questions, which brings about a lot of uncertainty for the future of ascension. And in a lot of people’s minds, a new star level based entirely on luck for each rank level is extremely worrying.
The current system for ascension ranks 1 and 2 are actually very close to pulling a champ twice to awaken them. The only difference is you have to pull a champ 3 times to get them to l2 ascension, as opposed to the 1-2 times before to pull and awaken them. I’m not seeing many complaints about the tier 2 dust or class token requirements, almost all have been about the specific champ tokens. While the requirements of luck to l2 ascend a champ are high, they’re not completely unrealistic, and will probably become commonly obtainable by next year. However, a ton of people already don’t like this system, especially if it will become exponentially harder to obtain these champion tokens. While I can get behind the requirements for l1-2 ascension, I can’t see requiring more tokens past that point as a good thing. The lack of clarity on whether it will be exponentially luck based or not is what seems so daunting to everyone.
3. The Scaling and Importance of New Mechanics (Might/Iso Burst)
Ascension introduced Might/Iso Burst, which overall have not impacted the game in great amounts. Pretty much every piece of feedback I’ve seen regarding Might has been that it either provides a very small benefit, or it’s not noticeable. Might, from our understanding, is the new “Star level” mechanic, following stat focus, adrenaline, and the sp3 minigame. However, it is far less noticeable and helpful than all 3. The biggest problem with Might/Iso burst is that we have no idea how it’s going to affect future ranks of ascension.
I think it can be assumed that the benefits of Might will increase with each future rank of ascension. The problem is that this is only an assumption, we don’t actually have any knowledge if this will be the case, or by how much it will continually increase. When Might/Iso burst has been such a big selling point for ascension, knowing if or how much it will increase is a big deal. Right now, we also don’t know if there will be an entirely new mechanic with future ascension levels either.
It would be nice to know if the time to reach Iso burst will decrease, or the percentage of damage bonus will increase, with each level. This would tell people that these mechanics will be more usable for war and BG’s as time progresses. In places where fight time matters, players are not going to see much of a benefit from these mechanics with the current time it takes to implement. A lot of the base pool ascension champs are targeted for short-mid range fights, and they’re not really benefiting from Might and Iso burst as much as everyone else.
4. Future Availability and Introduction for New Base Pool Ascended Champs
Kabam clearly stated that the specific current base pool for ascension will not increase and add new champs over time. This I do applaud, because doing so would drastically decrease your chances of pulling a specific champs’ ascension tokens. However, we don’t really have clarity on how often or when champs will be added to another base pool.
The big factor with introducing ascension is that it immediately devalues all non-ascendable champs. Take USAFA for example, after banquet he r5’ed several ascendable champs because they appear to be the future of the game. The largest part of his decision making wasn’t ranking up the champs he wanted to most, or even the most powerful champs in game. This is because in the future, we have no guarantee how many of our favorite, or most powerful, champs will become ascendable. We don’t know if Deathless Thanos for example, will become ascendable for years, or ever.
We are likely only 2-3 years out from r6s, and maxing out 7*. We don’t know what will happen to some of our favorite champs after that point, because right now it seems extremely likely that they’re going to become irrelevant over time. This problem happened over and over with each new star level, but the problem is that the purpose of 7* ascension is to elongate the 7* lifespan, and not just be 8* in disguise. If we were talking about 8*, everyone would expect most of our champs to become irrelevant eventually. But again, 7* ascension is meant to delay 8*, not become them. I have less of an issue with implementing them similarly to 8* with the crystal format, the real problem is that the future of 7* ascension just seems to be almost identical to 8* as of right now.
7* ascension is coming alongside r5s, which is much earlier in the 7* lifespan than when 6* ascension was introduced in their lifespan. In theory, this is a good idea, and gives players more roster variety, in choosing between r5ing ascendable champs or not. However, it instead immediately demotivates some people to even consider ranking up unascendable champs. This is because we don’t know how or when future 7* base pool champs will become ascendable.
We shouldn’t and don’t need to know which champs will become ascendable in the next few years, that’s completely unrealistic. Instead, it would be good to know how often more base pool 7* will become ascendable, or how many we can expect every year. Right now, we have no idea if there will be any further base pool 7* champs added in another ascension pool for years to come. While I like the idea of the base ascension pool not growing, we don’t know if and when there will be another one.
Right now, the ascension pool feels very similar to the loyalty and incursion crystals, which haven’t changed once since they were implemented. Those crystals were also promised to not have a changing pool for a long period of time, to incentivize against hoarding crystals for a pool change. My biggest concern is that 2-3+ years will go by without any more champs being added to a new base ascension pool.
Andrewtheruff announced he was quitting recently, and partly because he only wanted Mojo from the ascension pool. There’s a ton of people like him that either want 1-3 champs from the pool, or care about none of them. Personally, I only care about around 15-20 of the champs in that pool, which I will admit is far more than most. When there is no incentive to pull most if not all of the base pool, then ascension seems like a lackluster introduction. Topped with the fact that we don’t know when or if we will get another base pool, it becomes a huge problem for the playerbase.
When each new star level was introduced, there was also a small base pool, but we already knew that over time more champs would be added to it. This made the release of 6* for example far less worrying if you didn’t like anyone in the launch pool. If we at least knew that more champs would be ascendable in the next couple years, that would help with some of the backlash.
I understand that one of the purposes of ascension is to give more of the underrated and underplayed champs the spotlight. This idea wasn’t a bad decision at all, and has been done a few years ago with the release of 7*, which was a launch people enjoyed. Hulkling, scorpion, ghost, etc. were not introduced with the launch of 7* because they were at the top of the meta, but it still worked. A big reason that launch succeeded, but this one has sparked controversy, is due to the fact that we don’t have much guaranteed assurance about future additions. We at least knew with 7* there would be more champs added shortly, and also assumed the god tier champs wouldn’t, and overall the launch still went extremely well.
I’m sure most of the player base knows champs like Jean or Deathless Thanos will probably not become ascendable for a long time. And that’s not really an issue, as long as we can know two things. One, that we’re going to get more ascendable champs and options to ascend in the next couple years. And two, that they will eventually become ascendable, even if that isn’t soon, because at the end of the day this is 7* ascension not 8*. Blocking some of the 7* champs from ascension, even after the potential introduction to 8* far down the line, goes against what ascension is meant to be.
I’m sure there are plans to tell us more about ascension in months and years to come, but clarifying a few things would probably help a lot of the playerbase. Again, we don’t need specifics, just general visions for the future, intentions, and some reassurances, which would be extremely helpful. There is no going back on the launch of 7* ascension, but plans for the future can still change or be clarified. I’m
not trying to be disrespectful here in any way, just asking for clarity on a few things. Thanks to anyone who took the time to read through this.
