Champion Refit Ideas
StrayPool
Member Posts: 98 ★
Kicking around some ideas for older or less-used champions; reasonable changes that might be made to make them a bit more enjoyable to use. With the arrival of Morningstar, Mephisto and His Glorious Majesty Blade, the scale of enemy threat is so absurdly high now that previously buffed characters such as Punisher Classic, Winter Soldier, and Spider-Gwen are by no means overwhelming presences in the contest. But they are still viable in their own ways, and - perhaps opinion comes in a bit here - but still fun enough to take into any given game mode that doesn't demand specific champions for the barest odds of success. I think a lot could be done with most of the Champs in the game. They don't need to all be the next OG Black Widow to see some more mileage, and I for one know I prefer not having one team of fighters and 50 digital paperweights after all the playtime I've put in. So let's hear those ideas if you have them; and try to be reasonable. Odds are slim enough this gets noticed, sure, but troll posts won't do us any favors. Thanks.
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Comments
1: Slightly raise his base attack power. There's about 100+ points between him and Hulk or Abomination - even WWII Cap and Electro overpower him, and don't have built-in weaknesses to energy attacks, which so many lethal specials use.
2: Adjust the Physical Resistance Trigger to give a bit more control to the fighter. Let it process on attacks being landed on the enemy or Luke, as Colossus can with his Armor Up; pretty much the same exact design idea, with both champs being defenders over attackers, and Colossus being able to pump his own defenses during attacks means that when he swings over to defense, it actually factors in when he needs it - as the enemy counterattacks him. Or, let it process on being hit or blocking hits, Black Panther Civil War or Ultron-style; makes sense enough to see this, as there's precedence as noted above. If need be, even drop the numbers on the Physical Resistance - since it is, admittedly, pretty damn high, despite its energy weak spot.
3: Luke's Special 2 and 3 have pretty meaty damage output, and the chances of Stun make them usable enough. But there is a big gulf between them and his Special 1, which taps feebly at the enemy, landing damage so low that a normal light attack combo is almost sure to deal more damage, even without critical hits involved. This shouldn't be the case for any champion who doesn't use Damage over Time; Joe Fixit's Special 1 deals minimal damage for each bullet, but each round dishes out wonderful bleed damage that stacks for very high numbers. So that balances out and we see where Fixit's strength lies. Cage could use either a simple damage boost to his First Special, or perhaps some other advantage to round him out. Science Champs were always pitched as "having innately high stats that cannot be dispelled", which suggests no need to lean on buffs in order to advance. Yet, arguably the most powerful Science Champions - Hulk, and new additions like Doctor Octopus getting some attention lately - lean on buffs to really raise them above the opposition. If a straight damage boost to that Special doesn't fit, or seems too little, maybe a small extension to his stun chances and/or length, or at most something like She-Hulk's Pummel could be repurposed as a multi-champ ability: I can think of a lot of champions that ability would suit just fine, and since it still demands an aggressive rush in a limited window of time, it isn't a simple "I win" button.
Altogether, any of these changes (primarily the first 2 - the 3rd was kind of a shot in the dark) would make Luke Cage a lot more fun to play, giving a bit of a feeling of control over what he brings to the table without launching him blatantly into the realms of the God Tier. He's supposed to be a strong, brick-like slab of a person who shrugs off impacts and tosses enemies around like rag dolls. Just a few tweaks like those above would let us feel like that, and give the man some more value in the Contest.
1: His Special 1 is vastly underpowered. Compare his volley of shots to that of Joe Fixit, who can deal bleed damage that slightly surpasses the bleed from his own Special 3, while War Machine's bleed doesn't even do enough damage to overtake basic Willpower's regen from an equal rank and rarity enemy (working primarily from my own as a framework, Rank 3/level 30 but with several levels of Greater Strength and maxed Courage to increase that bleed damage). War Machine is supposed to be a fighter among defenders, so I suggest either sharply raising the attack power of his Special 1 or raising its bleed damage and chance using Joe Fixit as an example. War Machine was pitched as "using Bleed to bypass high armor champions' defenses with damage over time" and that's a good idea. A lot of characters do just that - some to terrifying degrees. War Machine doesn't have to outstrip all of them in order to be a lot more effective with that intended goal than he is. Again, taking my own as an example, with class advantage no less, he leaves about 30 - 35 bleed damage per tick, assuming it lands, which it often does not seem to. If the notion of the champion is to have answers to high armor enemies, then he needs bleed damage which can compensate. Raise the impact damage just a bit (a token change - raw damage up only so that bleed immune enemies might still take some stings from it, making it feel like something worth using in a desperate situation) and scale his bleed higher in both chance of application and damage done over time.
2: There's a missed opportunity in War Machine's design versus the other Iron Armors. Iron Man, Iron Patriot and Superior Iron Man are all Guard champions, and they all have Armor Up to beat War Machine's as well as Arc Overloads which save their lives in a pinch, allowing them to wall up and push through a last ditch struggle. Add into this a generally high damage output for their special attacks, and lots of armor break, and they have good enough offensive usage as well. War Machine could do with a bit more power, to complete the motif of him being the Attacker of the family - his Armor Up is already appropriately lower than all the rest. So let's give him some Fury. Nothing extreme, mind - not like a full-on Hulk or Abomination-level boost, but if their Furies raise attack by about 40%, let War Machine have about a 20% attack boost, only when attacking; not enough of a boost to completely break his balance, but it would give him a reason to be run over the other Armors, in that he can do more damage than them without needing to use his Empty the Clip signature power to gain any kind of increased damage over them. War Machine is tagged as a "Damage over Time" Champion, but the two ways he can do this - Specials 1 and 3 - are extremely limited. But take into account the way he gains multiple Fury stacks if pushed too low on health, and how much damage his Special 3 does (which is a lot of punishment to shell out: I think it does even more damage than the Iron Man and Superior Iron Man Special 3's) and I think gearing him as a Burst Damage Champion makes more sense. His Special 2 already suits this fine. Give him Fury to pump his output a bit, and just that easily we have a champion who uses his windows of increased power to land high damage stacks, taking advantage of buffed bleed or just following up a well-aimed Special 2 Armor Break with an aggressive rush strategy. War Machine could be a useful Tech Class breaker; a Champ who can be leaned on to help break down defensive enemies and blow through big chunks of boss health when he hits his limits.
This time I'm looking at Kamala Khan. Starting at the top, she actually has really solid aggressive powers - or stats, at least. Her critical damage, chance and base attack power are all high and satisfying, but there is one thing built into her that serves to handcuff her in challenging play, and its how her Fury abilities work. Or mainly, how her Fury ability drawn from holding Heavy Attacks works - for a Champion who has multi-stack Fury options, not to the same insane degree as Crossbones but still formidable enough, it stands to reason that building them up is key to using her to her fullest. But numerically, one third of all her possible stacks of Fury are set up to be lost as she is hit - and since you can only gain these three stacks by charging a heavy attack, leaving her completely defenseless and unable to switch to a block, in active play the attempts to stack and not immediately lose these Furies typically end in disaster. Now, each individual stack of Fury doesn't boost Kamala's attack by much, and that's fair considering her signature ability drastically extends the time they last; if each stack was a "full" boost (that is, 30% or more) then Kamala would end up being one of the greatest raw damage Champions in the game, possibly challenging even the Hulk. That isn't what she needs, but I do believe she needs to be allowed her own power that isn't designed to be untenable in pitched combat. So here we go.
Suggestion 1: Remove the condition that her Heavy Charge Fury gets lost by being hit. Each stack only boosts her attack by about one fifth of her overall power, and managing to charge all 3 without needing to switch to evasion or blocking tactics is virtually impossible when you're facing things above her weight class - the sort of enemies against whom superior damage potential would be most appreciated. Removing the flaw in the charged Furies would give her a bit of a feeling like Gambit with his charges - needing to carefully alternate attacking and defending (or in Kamala's case, charging) to set up for big payoffs in the form of increased damage.
Suggestion 2: Simply give Kamala a chance to gain a non-stacking Fury buff through all basic attacks. The main benefit to this is actually not offensive - it's defensive. Kamala's passive ability of increasing block proficiency per stack of active Fury is grand in principal, but the timing of her means of activation leave it as a big weakness: Special attacks or charging heavy attacks (which, as detailed above, is not a reliable means of gaining them) are the only ways she can get Fury, which has a limited lifespan, during which time you are going to want to take advantage of it and use it to attack the enemy. If I charge up to a Special 2, and I have to time it just right to land through enemy reactions and auto-evade, and whatever the enemy may have, should I land the hit I am not going to want to then sit still holding block to use the boosted block proficiency she has for a full 10 seconds (or more, if duped). I'm going to want to get on the enemy as they stand, before they can mount a counterattack, and sink into them with the Fury still active before backing off to provoke dodge-able counters. Feeling like I have to choose "either/or" with Kamala reduces the fun of having her. I don't have to choose between increased power and lowering enemy ability accuracy with Crossbones, or choose between gaining evasion and landing a 100% certain critical hit Special 2 with Symbiote Spider-Man (whose signature would trigger Spider Sense then, of course), and Kamala deserves the same utility. She doesn't have to be "broken" in order to be fixed.
I will talk about miles-morales:
-I feel like he is divided between being a defender or a attacker.I suppose Kabams goal was to make him more of an attacker character in the game since his evade charges are finite in defense(at least as long as the opponent doesn't do special which is the case for anyone knowing how to fight him!).So yes his evade is fine(in fact great for attack) but he needs some tweaks:first of all his venom blast should not be based on opponents class,better let be random(like SL sp2) and change that weakness debuf(against mystic!) into an amor break or something else,maybe change sp1's fatigue as well into some kind of damage(precision,amor break...),also he could possibly have a chance for shock on his venom blast!Ideally it would be great if he could gain some critical or attack damage like stark spidy..maybe based on the number of evade charges!
I can see some good potential on miles built...but a few weaknesses make him much less of what he could become!To make it clear he doesn't even need to become a stark spidy,but still some of the above changes should make him a nice option to have and surely won't make him OP if done right!
Gamora is another matter. Her signature ability, like all of the Guardians, revolves around the idea of increasing her damage potential, and at an amazing level, too - 700% extra Critical damage. Well, almost - in practice the damage (possibly an outcome of diminishing returns, who knows) doesn't seem to get that full boost. My Gamora can crit with her first special for about 800 - 900 damage against a given enemy (Realm of Legends Winter Soldier for instance) while her Assassination with the same swing against the same enemy only does about 3,400 - 3,500 damage. 800 times 7 (700%) should be somewhere in the range of 5,600 damage, as written. Now she does have Cruelty, which is very nice, and does slightly boost the Assassination damage further, but here's where the fix lies; she can only Assassinate an enemy once, and its damage doesn't even add up as is it listed.
Is it weak? No, but it IS extremely restrictive where no other Guardian has any kind of similar limiter on their powers. Drax doesn't get one big buff of Fury and then lose all access to it for the rest of the fight. Star-Lord can crank his power up to unmatchable levels through skill and patience. Groot gets a full suit of defensive and offensive buffs as well as an unblockable second special. Even Rocket has some limited doses of defensive utility to help him out with his lower health. Gamora needs to be brought a bit closer to them.
Her bleed damage and guaranteed critical hit specials are wonderful - the numbers are high, her power is high, and she does enough raw damage that they never feel like wastes when used unawakened. Her Cruelty helps with basic brawling, too, but her signature ability should be rekitted to function - by probability chance - without a cap on how many times it can happen in a fight. For perspective, if the point is to one-shot equal or lesser enemies, then she can still do that with the surefire crits from her specials. If the point is to give her a massive boost of critical damage, how can we say one usage is all she deserves when Storm (a champion with higher base special damage, whose signature ability CAN be applied multiple times per fight) can outstrip her for damage with every special against any enemy? I have both champions at the same rank and level, with Gamora's signature ability double that of my Storm, who routinely deals double to nearly triple damage (4,000 - 8,000) with her critical hit specials, as well as shocking and stunning.
A simple fix for Assassination is to let it work an unlimited number of times per fight, but adjust the 700% damage boost to its signature level the same as her chance of causing it is. So lower levels mean less chance of Assassinating, and lower multiplied damage, but still add up to a significant boost in her damage, and max level would adjust out to that original 700% damage multiplier and max odds (49.95%, for a 4-star level 99).
Honestly, most of Gamora's stats and abilities are very effective for what they are, and only her Signature ability just doesn't quite have the usefulness that a signature should - it even redundantly "guarantees a critical hit" while her special attacks already do that. Even Hawkeye, stuck with the same limit of "once per fight" can endlessly drain power, and his Hemorrhage ability lasts so long that Inequity mastery users can use him to handcuff enemies with disadvantages that last the entire fight. Adjust her Assassination and she can still be outstripped for Damage by the likes of Storm, Gambit, Crossbones, Scarlet Witch, Rocket Raccoon, Star-Lord, Black Widow, Angela, Hela, Symbiote Spider-Man and others, but she would still have much more use in a harder, drawn-out fight; and even just the satisfaction for those who have her or the Guardians, would find more purpose in having her as part of the team.
@Kabam Miike