Why Damage-over-Time effects should separate from debuffs

In the MCOC, you have three categories of abilities: buffs, debuffs and passives. Buffs temporary increase a stat, debuffs temporary decrease a stat and passives can be both (or have no effect until triggered like Pacifism charges).

Each class is specialised in one category or kind of ability. Cosmic Champions focus on various kinds of buffs, Tech champions have Armor Ups buffs, Mutant champions have Regeneration buffs, Skill champions have Bleed debuffs and other Damage-over-Time (DoT from now on) debuffs and Mystic champions have the ability to nullify buffs.

Science champions have long been a class without a direction. Officially they can outclass Mystic champions because they have high basic attributes, but recent workings have them focused more on debuffs and passives, both which cannot be nullified. The reworked Red Hulk has Heat charges, the reworked Luke Cage has the Exhaustion debuff and Indestructible passive, Void has Intimidating Presence debuff and classics like Spider-Man, Captain America and Ant-Man still have Weaken, Stun, Armor Break and/or Fatigue debuffs.

To counter that, Skill champions are becoming more proficient in shaking those debuffs off. Taskmaster reduces passively the potency to place debuffs with 10% with every debuff, becoming immune to all debuffs after 10 debuffs. Kingpin has a 50% chance to turn a debuff into a Rage passive, which increases his base Attack rating and Power Gain rate by 5%.

This however produced a problem: DoT also counts as debuffs. As such, Taskmaster, Kingpin and probably later Skill champions are more proficient in shaking them off. You think: what's the problem with that, that's great! This wouldn't be a problem if:

Skill champions themselves rely heavily on Bleed debuffs, making Taskmaster and Kingpin ideal counter-champions to their own class.
Top Mutant champions like Archangel, Iceman, Wolverine, Storm and Sabretooth have potent DoT debuffs, making Taskmaster and Kingpin ability-wise good counter-champions even though Mutant is their class weakness.

That's why I think DoT and regular stat-reducing debuffs (and along with some miscellaneous debuffs like Heal Block, Power Lock and Stun) become two separate categories of abilities. This makes Taskmaster and Kingpin lose their potential DoT immunities, but avoids a game-breaking development. Kabam could give them a modified icon, like a square or diamond instead of a circle, to signal the separation.

Discuss.

Comments

Jh_Dez

Kingpin isn't a magnificent champ
Yet you want to take away one his desirable qualities?
Did you fight a kingpin in uncollected or somewhere else and got clobbered because he was shrugging off your bleeds..?
They're fine the way they are.

Colonaut123

Jh_Dez wrote: »

Kingpin isn't a magnificent champ
Yet you want to take away one his desirable qualities?
Did you fight a kingpin in uncollected or somewhere else and got clobbered because he was shrugging off your bleeds..?
They're fine the way they are.

No need to go personal.

Just wait till some Skill champion can shrug off Blade's bleeds, Iceman's Frostbite, Archangel's bleeds or Gwenpool's Incinerate and the forums get flooded with angry players asking for a derank ticket. Don't tell I didn't warn you!

Jh_Dez

I don't have blade lol
My iceman is r4 4*
And you kinda made it personal by going after my 6* kingpin lol

Colonaut123

Jh_Dez wrote: »

I don't have blade lol
My iceman is r4 4*
And you kinda made it personal by going after my 6* kingpin lol

No I didn't. You just lashed out for no reason. I'm signalling a future problem. Imagine a Kingpin who's chance to shrug off can be boosted or punishes debuffs even harder. Then it is a problem but it will be too late to complain. By separating DoT from debuff, you can avoid anti-debuff champions from becoming anti-DoT.

Wimaks

I’ve re-read post a couple times and I can’t figure out why this is “Necessary”. Not your post, conversation/debate is never a bad thing… Just not sure why you want this? It would only effect a small handful of champs who rely on this ability to set them apart and make them unique (king pin, taskmaster…)
HeIl, I always thought it was strange and arbitrary that Karnak only shrugs off non damage debuffs...?

Come to think of it, Karnak is kind of an example of how they already can/do differentiate between the two types

Wimaks

Colonaut123 wrote: »

I'm signalling a future problem. Imagine a Kingpin who's chance to shrug off can be boosted or punishes debuffs even harder. Then it is a problem but it will be too late to complain. By separating DoT from debuff, you can avoid anti-debuff champions from becoming anti-DoT.

“Future problem“ sort of suggests that this will be an unintended consequence. Where, in reality, this will be an intended ability to set FUTURE champs apart thereby contributing to the “growth of the game”...

Jh_Dez

He already has a synergy that increases his conversion chance by 15%
The future you're signaling is probably if he becomes a boss in story or a mini boss in aq and he's on a 20% increased chance for abilities to trigger, which everyone is aware of.
There are a lot of champs that don't inflict debuffs. People could use them
Heck agent venom has a 75% to shrug off all debuffs. And he has posed no threat to the contest

Also this isn't me lashing out

Colonaut123

Wimaks wrote: »

Colonaut123 wrote: »

I'm signalling a future problem. Imagine a Kingpin who's chance to shrug off can be boosted or punishes debuffs even harder. Then it is a problem but it will be too late to complain. By separating DoT from debuff, you can avoid anti-debuff champions from becoming anti-DoT.

“Future problem“ sort of suggests that this will be an unintended consequence. Where, in reality, this will be an intended ability to set FUTURE champs apart thereby contributing to the “growth of the game”...

Yes, unintended as the anti-debuff abilities are meant to tackle things like Weakness, Fatigue,... not DoT (besides Joe Fixit, Electro and Abomination, no Science champion has DoT debuffs). So yes, this is unintended. Kabam actually cares about class (dis)advantages and wouldn't want to see it turned upside down for what is nothing but a technicality. A technicality you can fix by making DoT not a debuff.

Wimaks

That’s where my confusion sets in. Why do you assume anti-debuff abilities are meant to ONLY tackle non-DoT?

But, again, Karnak is proof that they can and do differentiate between the two if they WANT to. So it won’t be unintended but very intentional, should they so choose…

Colonaut123

Wimaks wrote: »

I’ve re-read post a couple times and I can’t figure out why this is “Necessary”. Not your post, conversation/debate is never a bad thing… Just not sure why you want this? It would only effect a small handful of champs who rely on this ability to set them apart and make them unique (king pin, taskmaster…)
HeIl, I always thought it was strange and arbitrary that Karnak only shrugs off non damage debuffs...?

Come to think of it, Karnak is kind of an example of how they already can/do differentiate between the two types

Agent Venom got released with Tenacity, but nobody saw it as a problem.
Kingpin got released with Rage, but nobody saw it as a problem.
Taskmaster got released with Learn The Foe, but nobody saw it as a problem.

When Kabam releases X (and they certainly will!), all this sudden everybody saw the problem. But then it will be too late. We better request Kabam to either make champions which distinction between DoT and other debuffs like Karnak, or fix this all together for once and for all by separating the two.

Archit_Tandon498

Colonaut123 wrote: »

Jh_Dez wrote: »

Kingpin isn't a magnificent champ
Yet you want to take away one his desirable qualities?
Did you fight a kingpin in uncollected or somewhere else and got clobbered because he was shrugging off your bleeds..?
They're fine the way they are.

No need to go personal.

Just wait till some Skill champion can shrug off Blade's bleeds, Iceman's Frostbite, Archangel's bleeds or Gwenpool's Incinerate and the forums get flooded with angry players asking for a derank ticket. Don't tell I didn't warn you!

Lol there is already a champ for that. Ever heard crossbones?

Colonaut123

Wimaks wrote: »

That’s where my confusion sets in. Why do you assume anti-debuff abilities are meant to ONLY tackle non-DoT?

Based on their class advantage, Science, which do not use DoT often but other debuffs all the time. And you gave Karnak as example, which further proves my point.

Wimaks

I call, “assuming facts not in evidence“ jk

I kind of see how you are drawing a conclusion based on class relationship. But we can’t both use Karnak as proof in counter arguments lol

Also, you say Karnak proves your point, but if class relationship is in itself a fundamental idea in design. i.e skill has a fundamental advantage over science and science doesn’t rely on DoT so a skill champ reducing Debuffs will, by default, only mean non-DoT, then there would be no reason to SPECIFY non-damage in Karnak ability. It would just be assumed.

Wimaks

Regardless of whether I agree or not, I do understand now where you’re coming from.
Thanks for explaining

Colonaut123

Archit_Tandon498 wrote: »

Colonaut123 wrote: »

Jh_Dez wrote: »

Kingpin isn't a magnificent champ
Yet you want to take away one his desirable qualities?
Did you fight a kingpin in uncollected or somewhere else and got clobbered because he was shrugging off your bleeds..?
They're fine the way they are.

No need to go personal.

Just wait till some Skill champion can shrug off Blade's bleeds, Iceman's Frostbite, Archangel's bleeds or Gwenpool's Incinerate and the forums get flooded with angry players asking for a derank ticket. Don't tell I didn't warn you!

Lol there is already a champ for that. Ever heard crossbones?

Crossbones is not nearly as good, max 25% to shrug it off and -15% chance with Mutant champions. But against Science champions chances increase by +15%, again proving that Science is the debuff class while Skill is the anti-debuff class.

Colonaut123

Wimaks wrote: »

I call, “assuming facts not in evidence“ jk
I kind of see how you are drawing a conclusion based on class relationship. But we can’t both use Karnak as proof in counter arguments lol

Also, you say Karnak proves your point, but if class relationship is in itself a fundamental idea in design. i.e skill has a fundamental advantage over science and science doesn’t rely on DoT so a skill champ reducing Debuffs will, by default, only mean non-DoT, then there would be no reason to SPECIFY non-damage in Karnak ability. It would just be assumed.

Of course class advantages go beyond mere an Attack boost. I'm always so surprised people are not aware classes have specific abilities that are supposed to be strong against one class but weak against another. It is not that Kabam doesn't make it clear, they put the class system as messages in the inlog screen. Read it, it helps gameplay a lot.

As I told in my introduction, the game currently makes no distinction between DoT debuffs and non-damage debuffs, so abilities that tackle debuffs will tackle DoT debuffs to (unless specified like in the case of Karnak). However, we cannot rely on Kabam to make that distinction consistently (all the other Skill champions released so far don't).
So yeah, the next Skill champion who can shrug off debuffs might be able to beat like all meta-champions (Blade, Iceman, Archangel). And you know how much Kabam loves to disrupt the meta...

Wimaks

But the champs who have been mentioned here (AV, kingpin, Blade, taskmaster) already do the thing your warning champs in the future might be able to do. They DO shrug off Blade, iceman, archangel, GP…
And simply saying that most science champions don’t inflict DoT So why would their nemesis (skill) be able to deal with DOT…? Just because there is an underlying class advantage/disadvantage doesn’t mean that each class should only be useful against their “nemesis” And should have no particular advantage over (Or be able to deal with the abilities of) any other class…?

Asking them to differentiate visually the two different debuffs just kind of seems like a distinction without a difference in the grand scheme of things since, if they want to limit the power of a specific champ in the future they can just make it so they don’t shrug off DOT or non-DOT. Your solution would kind of make them have to go through every champ and add in the specific DOT vs. non-DOT. Otherwise people would be complaining that DOT are DIFFERENT than non-DOT and, “your description just says debuff? Which is it…?!“

You’re making it seem like they’re making champs that can deal with Debuffs... they don’t WANT the skill champ To nullify DOT just non-DOT but because they don’t visually differentiate… Oh well guess they’re just going to to be able to deal with both.

Colonaut123

Wimaks wrote: »

But the champs who have been mentioned here (AV, kingpin, Blade, taskmaster) already do the thing your warning champs in the future might be able to do. They DO shrug off Blade, iceman, archangel, GP…
And simply saying that most science champions don’t inflict DoT So why would their nemesis (skill) be able to deal with DOT…? Just because there is an underlying class advantage/disadvantage doesn’t mean that each class should only be useful against their “nemesis” And should have no particular advantage over (Or be able to deal with the abilities of) any other class…?

Asking them to differentiate visually the two different debuffs just kind of seems like a distinction without a difference in the grand scheme of things since, if they want to limit the power of a specific champ in the future they can just make it so they don’t shrug off DOT or non-DOT. Your solution would kind of make them have to go through every champ and add in the specific DOT vs. non-DOT. Otherwise people would be complaining that DOT are DIFFERENT than non-DOT and, “your description just says debuff? Which is it…?!“

You’re making it seem like they’re making champs that can deal with Debuffs... they don’t WANT the skill champ To nullify DOT just non-DOT but because they don’t visually differentiate… Oh well guess they’re just going to to be able to deal with both.

There is a trend of more and more meta-disturbing champions (purposely I would say). It is a matter of time before we get a Skill champion who can really threaten the top champions.

The reason why Skill are specialised in DoT is because DoT can effectively deal with the high attributes of the Science class.

The class system has a bit more finesse than Kabam explains. Yes, there are visible damage boosts/nerfs when fighting the disadvantaged/advantaged class. Yes, each champion of each class has specifically designed abilities to counter the disadvantaged class, while at the same time can be circumvented by the advantaged class. But it ability-wise, it isn't one-way street.:

The buff effects of Cosmic Champions are effective at outperforming the high Special Damage of Mutant Champions.
The robotics of many Tech Champions provide immunity to the Bleeding inflicted by Skill Champions.
Bleeding and Regenerative abilities common to Mutant Champions can bypass the high base attributes of Science Champions.
Bleed damage of Skill Champions cannot be removed by Mystic Champions.
The debuffs of Science Champions can counteract the status effects of Cosmic Champions.
Mystic Champions can neutralise or nullify the armor-boosting and repairing abilities of Tech Champions.

But what rarely happens, is the reverse: a Tech champion that can neutralise the buffs of Cosmic champions. Or Skill champions who can Heal Block. There are exceptions: Magneto with his Magnetize ability can counteract Tech champions (but that's only because it would be out-of-character if he couldn't). This should remain the exception. But the anti-debuff abilities of the newest Skill champions are not based in comics and are purely due a technicality.

I can sense you've great faith in Kabam, that they make sure that the anti-debuff ability of Skill champions will not be game-breaking. I do not share that same faith.

I make no illusion: this will be a major update. The visuals of DoT effects will be changed. They will no longer be referred to as debuffs in the descriptions (although I haven't seen that, so I see no problem).