Kang has entered LL

Vhailorx

@dianetics said:
I don't get why people are trashing on Knull...it's sort of a revisionist history. When he dropped he was quite good and very different from the heroes available. He was a gigantic meat shield that punished teams with low health. I may be wrong but is he still the highest health 5* at 450?

Knull was viable for about 6 months. He showed up often in 450 PvP.

Kamala killed his PvE value and SheThor killed his PvP value.

The drop order was
sighClops->Collosus->5witch->Knull and most people were pretty sure sighClops was not good and Knull was usable so they waited for old Scott to drop out.

I didn't say knull was trash. I think he seemed to be slightly better than sighclops when they were both new, but subsequent releases have made sighclops better and knull worse, so the choice looks poor in retrospect. I think that's a fair assessment. They (sighclops and knull) are both mid-tier/niche at best.

I agree that knull's kit was very unusual at launch, but I think "quite good" might be a going a little too far. He was always a little too slow and too unreliable to be in the meta conversation.

entrailbucket

I know he had the highest health when he was launched but I don't know if someone has surpassed him since then.

I never saw 450ish Knull in PvP, even when he was still new, and the 550 ones only ever seem to get used when he's boosted. I suspect that's because I don't see much of anything at 450 due to the matchmaking algorithm, and the people with a very high level Knull also have/had a very high level SW/Colossus combo that they'd be using all the time.

I personally don't like him very much because he has tons and tons of health but doesn't do much damage. I usually end up having to mirror him in PvP when he's boosted (to take fewer incoming attacks), and high level Knull/Knull mirror matches take forever.

Vhailorx

Yeah. He had the highest health, the second ever passive aoe in the 5* tier, plus passive strike tile generation. And his damage redirection thing that is. I think, still unique. So it's a very unusual kit.

Daredevil217

@Vhailorx said:
Yeah. He had the highest health, the second ever passive aoe in the 5* tier, plus passive strike tile generation. And his damage redirection thing that is. I think, still unique. So it's a very unusual kit.

Wong and Moonknight I believe both a version of deflecting damage in the 5* tier.

@dianetics said:
Kamala killed his PvE value and SheThor killed his PvP value.

I’m sorry but no. I like actually like Knull. But he was never really relevant in a competitive space. And if he was, he dropped out of relevancy long long before the recent BCS releases. So these two did not “kill his value”.

Vhailorx

Wong is both new and complex enough that can't say I have a good handle on his kit. But I should have remembered moon knight, even though it works a little differently than knulls.

entrailbucket

@Daredevil217 said:

@Vhailorx said:
Yeah. He had the highest health, the second ever passive aoe in the 5* tier, plus passive strike tile generation. And his damage redirection thing that is. I think, still unique. So it's a very unusual kit.

Wong and Moonknight I believe both a version of deflecting damage in the 5* tier.

@dianetics said:
Kamala killed his PvE value and SheThor killed his PvP value.

I’m sorry but no. I like actually like Knull. But he was never really relevant in a competitive space. And if he was, he dropped out of relevancy long long before the recent BCS releases. So these two did not “kill his value”.

I think he was saying that he saw Knull frequently in low-champ 5* territory in PvP. I don't have any way of knowing whether that is/was true, though. I can only say that at the highest competitive matchmaking tiers he's only ever showed up when boosted.

Daredevil217

@Vhailorx said:
Wong is both new and complex enough that can't say I have a good handle on his kit. But I should have remembered moon knight, even though it works a little differently than knulls.

These new/complex characters are why I originally halted my 5* rankings lol. I still don’t know how best to utilize Arcade. Is he good? Does he suck? Also I can’t really bring anything unboosted in the Chas-meta because they’ll be eaten alive. I need to get on it though.

Daredevil217

@entrailbucket said:

@Daredevil217 said:

@Vhailorx said:
Yeah. He had the highest health, the second ever passive aoe in the 5* tier, plus passive strike tile generation. And his damage redirection thing that is. I think, still unique. So it's a very unusual kit.

Wong and Moonknight I believe both a version of deflecting damage in the 5* tier.

@dianetics said:
Kamala killed his PvE value and SheThor killed his PvP value.

I’m sorry but no. I like actually like Knull. But he was never really relevant in a competitive space. And if he was, he dropped out of relevancy long long before the recent BCS releases. So these two did not “kill his value”.

I think he was saying that he saw Knull frequently in low-champ 5* territory in PvP. I don't have any way of knowing whether that is/was true, though. I can only say that at the highest competitive matchmaking tiers he's only ever showed up when boosted.

Again no. Even if that’s true (it’s not). There’s no way Knull has stayed clogging his queues all the way up until BCS made him obsolete. There’s no way that can be true for any MMR.

dianetics

I didn't say he was clogging the queues, only that he showed up often in PvP, and that he was viable...for about 6 months. He wasn't meta and he wasn't on every team. People would stick him with Colossus or Wanda. It's just what I observed when he was released.
There is a giant list of characters that never show up in pvp, but when Knull was first released for about 6 months he showed up.

Vhailorx

@Daredevil217 said:

@Vhailorx said:
Wong is both new and complex enough that can't say I have a good handle on his kit. But I should have remembered moon knight, even though it works a little differently than knulls.

These new/complex characters are why I originally halted my 5* rankings lol. I still don’t know how best to utilize Arcade. Is he good? Does he suck? Also I can’t really bring anything unboosted in the Chas-meta because they’ll be eaten alive. I need to get on it though.

I have been using arcade in the 3* ddq node just to figure out his power set. I think the consensus is a little low on him. he's not particularly fast, but he is the best pure trap character in the game by pretty big margin. His damage can get really high (at least at the 3* tier) and I think there are some good ways to play him; they mostly boil down to rush blue for that sweet aoe/team stun, and there are faster ways to rush a big damage dealer. I think the biggest problem with him is that traps are just inherently worse than other kinds of powers for offensive value. And as discussed ad nauseum elsehwere, MPQ rewards winning quickly, so picking the second or third best offensive option is just not that attractive a proposition.

entrailbucket

It's such a missed opportunity. I would love a character who's slow and unreliable but hits really crazy hard to make up for it. The problem with the slow/unreliable characters is that they hit just as hard (and often less) than the fast, consistent guys, so we don't even really have a choice.

Like I can pick the guy who does 10,000 damage every 3 turns, 30% of the time, or the guy who does 10,000 damage every turn 100% of the time. How will I ever decide???

Vhailorx

@entrailbucket said:
It's such a missed opportunity. I would love a character who's slow and unreliable but hits really crazy hard to make up for it. The problem with the slow/unreliable characters is that they hit just as hard (and often less) than the fast, consistent guys, so we don't even really have a choice.

Like I can pick the guy who does 10,000 damage every 3 turns, 30% of the time, or the guy who does 10,000 damage every turn 100% of the time. How will I ever decide???

I strongly disagree. A character that had a 33% of doing 300k damage every 3 turns does not interest me. Nor do i think they would get a lot of end game play.

But I am also someone who has little interest in the deck of many things or other pure RNG mechanics, so ymmv.

entrailbucket

Well, if they're going to do "slow and unreliable" anyway, the very least they can do is make them hit harder than the incredibly consistent passive guys.

HoundofShadow

You need to get off the "every character must hit hard alone" mentality because the name of the game, as BCS has stated in their deisign philosophy, is synergy.