Champion Review – Sorcerer Supreme

Note: As a member of the Marvel Contest of Champions Content Creator program, I was granted early access to a 5* Rank 3 Sig 200 Sorcerer Supreme for the purposes of this review. I do not get to keep this champion and she will be removed from my account shortly after this review goes live.

The first crossover character from Realm of Champions has arrived! The champion of the Temple of Vishanti, the Sorcerer Supreme follows the teachings of the Ancient One, Stephen Strange.

Review
Sorcerer Supreme is a single-fight ramp-up mystic champion that does best in longer fights, and requires thoughtful and methodical game-play to shine.

Art/Design:
As usual, the champion looks amazing. Her weapon, a spell-book, probably shouldn’t work, but it is actually incorporated quite well, which impressed me. She moves fluidly around the screen and I had no problems with intercepting.

Gameplay:
Like I mentioned above, Sorcerer Supreme has a bit of a ramp-up to her, and you have to be deliberate about it. If you’re a button-masher, she’s not for you. You need to take your time, watch her Blessings, and build her up to suit the fight you’re in. She is definitely a “Thinking-Summoners” champ.

Damage:
She’s not a noodle, but it does take a little bit of work to get to the good damage, and you have to be cognizant of her phases and the timing of your specials. Like most mystics, she’s more about the utility than the raw damage.

Utility:
She doesn’t have immunities, but there are some positive elements to her kit. Most people will immediately get excited to see another champion with the slow debuff, which is quite popular at the moment. Beyond that, she can nullify buffs, as we’ve come to pretty much expect from all mystics at this point, and she has power steal as well as passive regeneration. Most of her utility is dependent on throwing specials to store and spend Runes (I’ll get into this in the guide below), and because she’s not bleed or poison immune, running suicides really hampers her.

Fun Factor:
While I enjoyed playing her, she’s not a “wow you with the Big Yellow Numbers” type of champion. If you like cerebral, deliberate play, and you aren’t rushing to get the fight done as quickly as absolutely possible, I think you’ll enjoy her.

Conclusion:
Overall, Sorcerer Supreme is a solid champ and she’ll have her devoted followers, but she’s got a very tough battle on her hands to claim a top spot in the now stacked mystic class. She can’t compete with Longshot when it comes to damage, Claire Voyant for being suicide friendly, Ghost-Rider and Mephisto for regeneration and immunities, Symbiote Supreme for clutch auto-nullification, or Doctor Doom for being an all-around beast. So in conclusion, I believe she has value, but her competition for rank-up resources is fierce.

That’s it for the editorial part of the review. Keep reading for an explanation on how to play the champion, tips, and additional pros and cons.

View Champion on Auntm.ai

Key Information:

Like Doctor Strange, Sorcerer Supreme has different phases that she rotates though. This may seem a little tricky to understand at first, but once you get used to the rotation and the color codes for the Blessings (phases) it’s not too bad.

Sorcerer Supreme will by default start the fight in “Cyttorak’s Ferocity.” This is her best damage phase, granting additional attack rating and critical damage rating, and is signified by an orange icon.

Next, she will rotate to “Raggadorr’s Resolve,” which is her defensive Blessing and is signified by a blue icon. In this phase she receives extra armor and +30% perfect block chance.

Her third and final phase is “Ikonn’s Ingenuity,” signified by a purple icon. This is her power phase, granting all hits Power Steal for 3% of the Opponent’s current power. Sorcerer Supreme gains +150% of the power stolen.

Now unless you are the biggest MCOC Lore Nerd on the planet, you’re not going to remember those names, so let’s just use colors to keep it simple. The rotation is Orange >> Blue >> Purple. Orange is for attack, Blue is for Armor, and Purple is for Power.

If you want to immediatly rotate to the next Blessing, throw a Heavy attack.

The current Blessing active on Sorcerer Supreme is very important when it comes to special attacks. This is because whenever a special attack is performed, a “Rune” of the current Blessing will be stored. Stored Runes are later spent during subsequent special attacks, allowing Sorcerer Supreme to build her attack and utility over the course of the fight.

Runes of Cyttorak (Orange/Attack) will armor break the opponent for 12 seconds.

Runes of Raggadorr (Blue/Armor) will passively regenerate health over 12 seconds. Additionally, Sorcerer Supreme will regenerate 75% of damage from blocked hits.

Runes of Ikonn (Purple/Power) places a Slow Debuff on the opponent for 12 seconds, preventing Unstoppable and Evade effects, unless the opponent is of the Science class.

Sorcerer Supreme deals Energy Damage instead of Physical Damage.

Sorcerer Supreme has negative Physical Resistance, but increased Energy Resistance.

Her pre-fight ability allows the Summoner to select which Blessing she will start the fight in.

Sorcerer Supreme Signature Ability

Signature Ability:
Her Signature Ability increases her Ability Accuracy as well as the potency of her Blessings. Both percentages scale with Signature Level. While she is the number 2 Mystic champion for prestige, she is still over 200 points behind Doctor Doom.

Team Building/Key Synergies:
Sorcerer Supreme has a unique synergy “Champions of the Battleworld” with Storm (Pyramid X) which allows her to rapidly gain 1 bar of power at the start of the fight. While this isn’t something I could test, the Developer’s Note says this is helpful if you need to trigger the Aura of Nullification at the start of the fight.

The “Doctors Strange” synergy with Doctor Strange and Symbiote Supreme grants Passive Prowess whenever a Blessing activates, increasing special attack damage by 15%. There is a cap of 3 Prowess and they expire after a special is launched.

“Mystic Arts” with Dormammu, Doctor Voodoo, and Mordo pauses the Nullification Aura during a special attack.

“Bluetiful People” with Archangel, Nebula, and The Champion grants all champions additional block penetration.

“Gamma Horde” with Hulk, Hulk Ragnarok, Red Hulk, She-Hulk, and Joe Fixit increases the length of stuns for synergy members by 25%.

“House of Iron” with Iron Man, Iron Man Infinity War, War Machine, and Hulkbuster increases the potency of Armor Break Debuffs of synergy members by 30%.

Mastery Setup:
I don’t run suicides, but everything I heard from the people in the CCP that do is that she is not at all suicide friendly. She has slower than normal power gain, and relies on throwing a lot of specials to get ramped-up, so having points in Mystic Dispersion is highly recommended.

Alliance War Defense:
Sorcerer Supreme doesn’t look to be more than a diversity-level defender at this point. Her special attacks are fairly easy to dodge, and she doesn’t benefit from any of the common defensive tactics.

Special Attacks:
The SP1 is a good attack if you need to keep the opponent from gaining buffs. The first hit has a 100% chance to nullify 1 Buff on the opponent, and for the next 10 seconds Sorcerer Supreme gains an “Aura of Nullification.” This allows Sorcerer Supreme to Nullify 1 Buff on the opponent for every .75 they are in close proximity. The SP1 attack stores 2 Runes of the current Blessing.

The SP2 will store 3 Runes of the current Blessing, and after consuming Runes, will pause the effects until 5 seconds after the attack ends.

The SP3 increases Sorcerer Supreme’s attack rating based on stored Runes. The first time it is used in the fight, it will store a permanent Rune (meaning it is never consumed) of the current Blessing. Additional SP3s will store 2 non-permanent Runes.

Pros:
Combination of Energy Damage and Nullification makes her a good Korg counter.

Pre-Fight ability lets you have more control over her rotation by deciding which Blessing to start the fight in.

Performs best longer fights.

Combination of nullification and slow debuffs makes for an excellent counter to unstoppable. Potentially excellent for Aspect of War nodes.

Armor Break can shut down defenders like Emma Frost and Killmonger.

Enjoyable for Summoners that like a “game-within-a-game” champion.

Cons:

Doesn’t get that instant nullification that Symbiote Supreme gets at the start of the fight, and doesn’t stack staggers. Instead, relies on triggering her Aura of Nullification and then attacking into the opponent. Basically, if you need Nullify at the top of the fight, she’s not a good choice, unless you can bring Storm Pyramid X.

Has a higher skill cap than your average MCOC champion.

No immunities.

Regeneration isn’t very useful for sustainability.

Incredibility dependent on the Blessing rotation lining up with her power bar, and needs to throw specials at the right time to access her utility. There is a lot to remember with this champion, and your timing has to be on point. Will fail the “Juice vs Squeeze” test for many because of this.

Doesn’t appear to be a top AQ or AW option.

Ideally, you want to throw an SP3 in the fight, which takes time to build up to and is not practical in some cases.

Needs points in Mystic Dispersion.

Pro Tips:
Sorcerer Supreme takes some getting used to. You’re going to have to practice the rotation of your Blessing and how that lines up with your play style and power gain. There are times when you have to save a special for when the correct Blessing is active. Remember you can heavy attack to instantly rotate to the next Blessing.

Sorcerer Supreme is another one of those champions that you need a pre-fight plan for. Remember to review the optimal Blessing and Special Attack for your current match-up until you know them cold.

Recommended Videos:

Katy Candy – Sorcerer Supreme vs 6.2.6 Champion Boss

Katy Candy – Sorcerer Supreme Review

RichTheMan – Sorcerer Supreme Review

Lagacy – Sorcerer Supreme Review

Ghostdog – Sorcerer Supreme Review

Dark Zodiac – Sorcerer Supreme Review

-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 8, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Wednesday, April 8, 2020.

Schedule Notes: Incursions officially debut today! Week 2 of the Baron’s War opens at 1pm EST. Alliance War Season 17 kicks off with matchmaking at 6pm EST.

Katy Candy and RichTheMan offer some tips for Incursions.

Brian Grant asks if Hulkbuster is worth ranking-up now.

KT1 takes down the 6.4.2 Thor Ragnarok with Mister Fantastic.

Karatemike solos the 6.3.5 Mysterio with Human Torch.

-Dano357

Incursions – An Early Guide

Summoners!

An exciting new game-mode, Incursions, is set to debut to the entire community on Wednesday, April 8 at 1pm EST. As a member of the Marvel Contest of Champions Content Creator Program, I was granted early access to Incursions. While we still have a lot to learn about Incursions as far as best practices, team building, and overall strategy, I wanted to share my experiences and thoughts with you to help you prepare for your initial runs.

Read the Full Kabam Forum Post on Incursions.

General Thoughts
So far, I’ve been able to play Incursions three times during the early access period with other CCP members, first with Katy Candy and later with RichTheMan. I was a fan of Dungeons, but even I must admit they needed a revamp, and I believe Kabam succeeded with this update. What we’ve got now is a much more collaborative, engaging, and entertaining game mode (especially for live-streams) that actually rewards pushing.

Running Incursions
So if you played Dungeons, you’ll be familiar with the setup for Incursions. You find a partner (please not a random), you each pick 3 champions, select a difficulty (Sector) and off you go. You’ll then be faced with the choice of who goes left and who goes right, and what node on the mini boss to take down, but that’s where things start to get interesting.

Prior to your initial fight you’ll reach the first of the 4 choice boxes. At this point you’re given the option to take out a link node on the next fight, or to swap in a new champion to help you. Note if you swap in a champion, it will enter your team at the same health level as the champion you swapped out, and the champion you swapped out will go on cool-down.

After the first fight, you then move to the second selector box, which will allow you to choose from 3 buffs to add to your team. These buffs expire after a certain number of Zones.

Then you’re on to the mini boss, and after that you get to select another hack. Now you and your teammate decide who takes on the boss. After the boss, you’ll reach the final selector of the Zone. This selector has some very powerful choices as you can either revive your team to 20% health, heal your team by 40%, or choose a Boss Hack, which will grant a very powerful bonus to your champions. Now you can choose to either exit the Incursion or continue on to the next Zone, and everything repeats with increased difficulty.

To review, the map pattern is:
Unlink Node/Champion Swap
1st Fight
Select a Hack
Mini Boss
Select a Hack
Boss
Boss Hack/Revive/Heal

Important Notes
There are some changes from Dungeons to Incursions that you should keep in mind. The first is that there is now no penalty for not completing a room/zone, so there is no reason not to push. The second is that there is no timer for Incursions. If you want, you and your teammate can play a few rooms, exit out, and then come back later to continue, as long as you do so within the 5-day reset period. This is a great feature because pushing in Incursions will take more time than Dungeons.

Finally, Incursions have almost all the new champions and nodes added in, and the classes are mixed up on the lanes, so they will be a lot more difficult to counter than Dungeons were.

Tips
Incursions will take more time and require more communication than Dungeons. If you’re going to push in Sectors 6 or 7, I strongly suggest finding a partner you can trust, and getting on voice chat. Try to block out at least 45 minutes for a solid run.

While there is an appeal to reviving or healing your champs via the final Zone node, it will significantly reduce your power level going forward, so keep that in mind. You’re going to want those hacks.

Team building is crucial to success in Incursions. You want a team that works together well, and also fills in any missing utility on your partner’s team. While we’re still in the early days of finding out the best Incursions champions, I do have some tips.

The boosts are all about adding extra damage. So if you have a champion that has a lot of utility but is lacking in damage, the hacks are a good way to make up the difference.

The hacks seem to heavily favor champions that naturally generate a lot of active buffs. There are hacks like “Buff Cornucopia” which add an additional, random buff when you gain a buff, and others which increase the potency of your buffs or duration of your buffs. Because of this, the Cosmic class overall is going to be very useful in Incursions. Captain Marvel Movie and Hyperion performed well, but I think “second-tier” options like Angela, Venom, Venom The Duck, Carnage, and Silver Surfer could all be great pics. Even King Groot did really well for RichTheMan, simply because he was constantly gaining buffs and regenerating, while the hacks boosted his damage output.

This leads me to my next point. If you’re going to make a push, regeneration is king because you can sustain your champs while continuing to collect boss hacks. If at all possible, try to design a team that allows for constant regeneration. Champions like Ghost-Rider, Mephisto, Morningstar, Blade, Old Man Logan, X-23, Omega Red, and Claire Voyant all look to be quality Incursions champions.

Persistent charges carry over from Zone-to-Zone, so your multi-fight ramp-up champions like Aegon, Corvus Glaive, Morningstar, Guillotine 2099, and Mojo all appear to be excellent choices.

If you don’t have great regen champs, you can go with champions that gain many buffs, because those will be the easiest to boost up from the hacks and you may be able to trigger random regeneration buffs from “Buff Cornucopia.” Some champs that come to mind that may benefit from this strategy include Colossus, Ghost, Red Skull, and Warlock.

Rewards
There are two different silos for rewards in Incursions. The first is Milestone Rewards. These reset every 5-days and are based off the total number of Incursion points you have earned during the 5-day cycle. There are 6 milestones and you need to score 23,500 points to achieve them all. You can earn 3,300 Dark Artifacts and 120K gold every 5 days from the Milestones.

Then there are the Top Zone Rewards. These reset every 30 days. You’ll be able to earn Top Zone Rewards for the 2 Sectors you are eligible for based on roster. For end-game players these will be Sectors 6 & 7. The rewards are based on the highest Zone you completed in a given Sector in the 30-day period.

For Sector 7, the Top Zone Rewards go up to Zone 25, but you can earn all the Dark Artifacts by completing Zone 10. Reaching Zone 10 in Sector 7 will earn you 6,100 Dark Artifacts, 420K Gold, and 3,600 5* Shards. Each additional Zone up to 25 earns an extra 60K gold and 500 5* shards

For Sector 6, you can earn 5,600 Dark Artifacts, 370K Gold, and 2,950 5* shards by making it to Zone 10, with no additional rewards for completing more rooms.

Keep this in mind, as there are some big extra rewards for running both Sectors at least once during a 30-day period.

A Sector 6 & 7 player that can make it to Room 10 will be able to earn 31,500 Dark Artifacts over a 30-day period, which is more than enough to buy one 5* Incursions Crystal a month.

That’s it for Incursions. I’m very interested in seeing how this game-mode develops once it’s released to the community on April 8. Let me know what you think of them in the comments, and if you find a great Incursions champ that I didn’t mention above.

-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 7, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Tuesday, April 7, 2020.

Schedule Notes: The Alliance Quest Series begins at 3pm EST.

The Hulkbuster Beta is now live! Check out early impressions from Seatin, RichTheMan, Lagacy, KT1, and Karatemike.

What was the first thing MetalSonicDude did in the Beta? Solo The Grandmaster with Hulkbuster of course!

Episode 2 of the Marvel Champions Lounge Podcast is now live on Soundcloud.

Craftygriding has Round 2 Predictions for the Elsa Bloodstone and Venom the Duck Arenas.



-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 6, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Monday, April 6, 2020.

Schedule Notes: Round 2 of the 4* Elsa Bloodstone and Venom The Duck Featured Arenas at 1pm EST. Summoner Sigil Owners, your Solo Event, Gold Quest, and items on a 7-day timer and the Legendary Crystal in the Black-ISO Market reset at 1pm EST. 100% roster availability until Alliance War resumes at 2pm EST. The Hulkbuster Beta begins at 2pm EST. UMCOC Podcast, Live on Discord at 8pm EST.

Listen to Episode 11 of the Contest Realm Podcast with special guest Kabam Frenchie who joins us to talk about game economy in MCOC.

Lagacy takes his Venom The Duck to Rank 5.

KT1 lists the Top 15 Champs for Act 6 Exploration.

-Dano357

Contest Realm Podcast – Episode 11 – Game Economy with Kabam Frenchie

Summoners!

Big thanks to Frenchie for joining us for Episode 11 to talk about the game economy in Marvel Contest of Champions, share what House he’ll be joining in Realm of Champions, and tell us exactly what the folks at Kabam think about Rich’s Marvel Contest News videos.

Listen on Soundcloud
Listen on Spotify.
Listen on iTunes

-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 5, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Sunday, April 5, 2020.

Schedule Notes: Sunday Arenas begin at 1pm EST. 100% roster availability starting around 2pm EST.

Katy Candy features Guillotine 2099 in her latest 6 Minutes or Less.

RichTheMan ranks the Top 5 Combo Champs.

Seatin has posted the updated April Tier List.

MCOC Doc explains what to do with your Man-Thing.

Jason Voorhees lists the top Mr. Sinister Counters.

MetalSonicDude solos The Grandmaster with Killmonger.

Swedeah takes down the 6.3.2 Nick Fury Boss with Rogue.

-Dano357

The Week Ahead in MCOC – April 5-11, 2020

Summoners!

April is shaping up to be a very busy month in the Contest, which is wonderful considering we all need a bit of distraction given the state of the world right now. The new co-operative game mode, Incursions, will officially be released to the entire community on Wednesday, April 8 at 1pm EST. Other highlights of the week include Week 2 of the Baron’s War side-quest, and the release of the first of the April champions, Sorcerer Supreme. Finally, the long-awaited Hulkbuster Beta will go live on Monday, April 6 at 2pm EST.

Alliance Wars Seasons
We are currently in the off-season. Alliance War Season 17 is set to start with matchmaking on Wednesday, April 8 at 6pm. Rewards will lock on Friday, April 24 at 6pm EST, and the season will end on Tuesday, May 5.

For daily updates and the latest news, please follow @FrontlineMCOC on Twitter or join the Frontline: MCOC LINE Group.

View Full MCOC Calendar

Full Roster Availability (No AW/AQ): 100% champion availability on Sunday, April 5 at 2pm through Monday, April 6 at 2pm.

Sunday, April 5: Sunday Arenas begin at 1pm EST. 100% roster availability starting around 2pm EST.

Monday, April 6: Round 2 of the 4* Elsa Bloodstone and Venom The Duck Featured Arenas at 1pm EST. Summoner Sigil Owners, your Solo Event, Gold Quest, and items on a 7-day timer and the Legendary Crystal in the Black-ISO Market reset at 1pm EST. 100% roster availability until Alliance War resumes at 2pm EST. The Hulkbuster Beta begins at 2pm EST. UMCOC Podcast, Live on Discord at 8pm EST.

Tuesday, April 7: The Alliance Quest Series begins at 3pm EST.

Wednesday, April 8: Incursions officially debut today! Week 2 of the Baron’s War opens at 1pm EST. Alliance War Season 17 kicks off with matchmaking at 6pm EST.

Thursday, April 9: Round 1 of the 4* Venom and Sorcerer Supreme Featured Arenas begin at 1pm EST. First War Attack of Season 17 begins at 2pm EST.

Friday, April 10: The Alpha Arena begins at 6pm EST.

Saturday, April 11: No schedule notes.

Looking for more content from Frontline: MCOC?

100% Roster Availability for April

How The Baron’s War Side-Quest Works

How to Fix Alliance War

Contest Realm Podcast Episode 10 with RichTheMan


-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 4, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Saturday, April 4, 2020.

Schedule Notes: The Alliance Quest Series ends at 3pm EST. The Tier 4 Basic Arena begins at 6pm EST.

Katy Candy shares her thoughts on Incursions.

RichTheMan has a guide on how to achieve all the Baron’s War Objectives.

Lagacy shows you how to take down the new Map 7 Thing mini-boss.

Karatemike melts the 6.4.4 Captain Marvel Movie with Doctor Doom.

-Dano357

Around The Battlerealm – April 3, 2020

Summoners!

Here’s your Marvel Contest of Champions news brief for Friday, April 3, 2020.

Schedule Notes: No schedule notes.

MCOC DroidDoes reviews the April Marvel Insider Rewards.

Craftygrinding has arena predictions for Round 1 of Venom the Duck and Elsa Bloodstone.

What will spending $50,000 on MCOC get you? Check out Seatin’s latest account tour.

KT1 posted a full Map 7 run.

MetalSonicDude has a solo of the Hydra Adaptoid with Captain America Infinity War.

-Dano357

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