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Ebony Maw gets tweaked but will he be structurally fixed?

Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
edited October 2019 in General Discussion
I just pulled a 5* Ebony Maw. As stated in the announcement, he's getting tweaked. If I'm correct, Kabam means by tweaks changing some parameters but not the abilities themselves. It makes the pull less disappointing if I would have pulled him like a few months ago, but still, I'm sceptical if this is enough.

Kabam knowing, they will just make his degen and deterioration passives more potent. But will it make this wet noodle good enough to be on par with his Thanos buddies? Not really. His structural deficiencies remain. So this is a plea to Kabam: don't be afraid to alter abilities of new champions, as long it is positive.

But what are these structural deficiencies?

Let's start with the first issue: his missions. Each fight, the Maw can complete three missions. Only if all three are completed, he can get a persistent charge. He can go up to 6 charges. At the start of every fight, he inflicts a Deterioration passive for every persistent charge. But the way this needs to be done is tricky. Mission 1: nullify a buff. There it goes: not all match-ups have buffs or buffs of the necessary kind (initially, only fury, cruelty and precision buffs, which makes him weaker than most other mystics). You've two options then: get Cull and have easy access to buffs, or use the Sp1 to place a fury buff on the opponent. Sadly, it only lasts 6 seconds which isn't very long. Simply extending that fury won't be enough though.

The solution: make him inflict pseudo-fury buffs with every crit. When nullified, pseudo-fury buffs explode and deal direct damage. Also, expand the sp1 to all buffs. Give his Black Tongue the ability to steal buffs, with the same potency and a duration depending on his persistent charges (like 0 = same duration and every persistent charge extends that by 20% till 120%). Pseudo-furies cannot be stolen and if the opponent has no buffs, pseudo-furies are immediately removed. Power gain buffs should always be stolen like his heavy attack. Maybe expand this to regen as well? It would give him that extra bit of utility and damage.

The second issue: the interaction between his degen and deterioration passives. The sig of Ebony Maw consumes all deterioration passives to increase degen damage. Sounds good, yeah? Hmm, not really. Let's imagine: you start the fight with 3 persistent charges. Accordingly, the opponent is inflicted with 3 deterioration passives. But: as you complete missions, you inflict degen. Degen that consumes deterioration. On top of that, the sig inflicts degen with every miss. So you'll lose deterioration relatively fast. The only other source of deterioration is black tongue (takes 70 seconds when you play perfectly, one deterioration per 6 seconds), special attacks (+1) and nullify (+1 per buff, max: 4). So this ability that consumes deterioration for extra damage sounds good on paper but due to the imbalance of gaining vs consuming deterioration there will not be much at all. So this benefit goes straight out of the window.

The solution: make all of his missed attacks inflict deterioration instead of degen. This means you've an opportunity to build-up deterioration to consume it with the SP2 (which should definitely get a serious damage boost). It gives an interesting burst mechanic that players will definitely like. This however creates the problem of having no damage increase between bursts. I think it would be good if deterioration would passively degen in a similar fashion as Omega Red (maybe starting at 5 or 10) or having him hit instant degen damage per deterioration (like 10% of the damage dealt until 200%). I also think they should reduce power gain and regen by like 2% each up to 40%.

The third issue: after 70 seconds (if perfectly played), you'll persuade the opponent and inflict him with a black tongue. Sadly, that means no more falter and a serious reduction in sustainability. You'll get every 6 seconds a deterioration, which is nice, but it is not really compensating. In longer fights, this is really a handicap. Black tongue is nice (-30% power gain) but is not really competitive with other utility gods like Void.

The solution: restart the whole process. Yep, simple as that. Stack multiple black tongues for stacked reduced power gain. Give extra effects while black tongued: power stolen is burned for both the heavy and the SP3, give the SP2 concussion reducing ability accuracy by 100% for 6 seconds and all attacks have True Accuracy (mind control). Stacking black tongues doesn't change anything about these effects.

In sum: he will be a more interesting champion to use with these ability changes. Again: I don't believe he will be any good with only some tweaks to his degen damage, he needs a clear rework.

What do you think?

Comments

  • Lvernon15Lvernon15 Posts: 11,596 ★★★★★
    Personally I do think a simple numbers increase can work for maw, significantly increasing degen could make him a solid damage dealer, and increasing black tongue and heavy power control could make him an amazing power control champ, unless they expand deterioration to all buffs rather than fury it will still be useless, also making his persistent charges worthless, and they will still only have a use for his sig, but if you multiply the degen x10 or something he could be a really solid damage dealer, and if you make his heavy 25% current power and black tongue a 75% reduction or something he couldn be a really useful champ. Also I’d like to see black tongue apply faster
  • WardenZeroWardenZero Posts: 722 ★★★
    That is a very thorough and well thought out champ update. I very much doubt that Kabam will do a complete rework, but if they do, I hope they use one similar to this. The only problem with this is that stacking Black Tongues would make him completely OP in long battles. Therefore, the one tweak I would suggest to this is to decrease the potency of his Black Tongue Debuffs. Other than that, this is very good.

    Warden out ~
  • WardenZeroWardenZero Posts: 722 ★★★
    Note on the above: I would either reduce BT potency by 10% or reduce it by ~30% but have them apply ~50% faster, which would be a good trade-off.

    Warden out ~
  • Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
    Lvernon15 said:

    Personally I do think a simple numbers increase can work for maw, significantly increasing degen could make him a solid damage dealer, and increasing black tongue and heavy power control could make him an amazing power control champ, unless they expand deterioration to all buffs rather than fury it will still be useless, also making his persistent charges worthless, and they will still only have a use for his sig, but if you multiply the degen x10 or something he could be a really solid damage dealer, and if you make his heavy 25% current power and black tongue a 75% reduction or something he couldn be a really useful champ. Also I’d like to see black tongue apply faster

    We shall see. I agree it is a pity deterioration is only limited to fury.
  • Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★

    That is a very thorough and well thought out champ update. I very much doubt that Kabam will do a complete rework, but if they do, I hope they use one similar to this. The only problem with this is that stacking Black Tongues would make him completely OP in long battles. Therefore, the one tweak I would suggest to this is to decrease the potency of his Black Tongue Debuffs. Other than that, this is very good.

    Warden out ~

    You would need to battle 210 seconds (3 min 30 seconds) before he reduces it till 90%. There are better alternatives with a lot less time.
  • Colonaut123Colonaut123 Posts: 3,091 ★★★★★
    I also think a "Evil Masterminds" synergy with Doc Ock, M.O.D.O.K. and the future Doctor Doom would be good. Like regular masterminds synergy, when a combo of 15 or more hits is reached it increases attack rating of all villains by 10-15% and reduces ability accuracy by 10-15% when fighting against heroes. It gives some extra damage and utility.
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