Songbird is pretty crappy so far which I am not surprised by just reading her skills and passive before playing her it did not look very promising.
She is another toolbox character with only bad tools.
Her primary is the anti range debuff, which really sucks. I was hopeing her primary would be smart like for example Emmas. When Emma counters her mental tap is not used if the enemy is already under the effect of mental anguish then she uses her stun instead, I hoped that Songbird would counter in a smart way, her first ability has 2 different debuff themes, one is anti melee other is anti range. It would make sense if her primary attack than would counter range attacks with the anti range and the ant melee with anti melee. But instead she always just counters with anti range, this is of course horrible against any character who only has melee attacks. I found this just blatantly lazy to be honest. I been over that a lot of times before but, pvp reward heroes need to be strong to motivate people to actually want to win, now Songbird is one of my personally favorite marvel characters, so sure I would play anyway(and to just win of course...) but it leaves you with a bad taste in your mouth getting a hero that just has no use.
Her second ability has 4 different moves, so a lot of tools, while its all Quick action so you can use one of them each turn, they are just all pretty bad. A toolbox character should work in this way, they should have 4 moves that are all really horrible, but in certain situation its amazing to have it, then having 4 of those extremely good or bad abilities in total would make it a good let say each of them would be good in 10% of the matches, that's 40% in total where you have a super good counter ability to a team(a little fake math but I think my point is reasonable) she instead have 4 meh, mediocre QA moves that are all kinda ok they do something but they will never be amazing, that just leaves her with a bad QA for 100% of the games. Where other characters who have zero options but have an amazing QA will always outperform her mediocre moves.
They should give her way more hit or miss tools, if it Hits is great if it does not hit its useless. Now instead they chickened out and just gave her 100% average effects.
So far the good part with her is that her passive to get more turns and to avoid attacks have a really high chance to happen, unfortunately her counter attack from her passive is also of course only the anti range one.
So, I was thinking of writing an article earlier but I did not find time, on how the meta is gonna go crazy on psychic users. It was clear that both Mantis and Moondragon are pretty good and that the new agent set is amazing.
I actually did not think that the meta psychic set would be this broken but it is the first item in 3 years that made me swap out signpost!!!
However, in the end I swapped back to my classic agent set up as it was easier to win with that not saying that the mind set is bad but let me explain, why it stopped being as OP and I have to say this is just what I expected would happen as well.
Just like most stuff in the game the meta can easily shift into something that most people just follow the band wagon, like classic Nul + Kuurth, even do that team sucks people kept using it and it made it suck even more as if everyone is using that exact same team you can go with a counter to that and win extremely easily.
Back when Nul + Kuurth was the absolute staple team for 4-5 season for a while it was played in 90%+ of the defences, that means you should have 90% win ratio. Even if the attack team you use will lose to all other teams in the game, wining 9/10 is pretty good.
The meta psychic mind set is so broken that everyone started using it, eventually everyone that countered with anti psychic just that guessed would happen, so when I reached about 1800 or so the few days before suddenly it was only kuurths. And I loath kuurth so seeing her resurgence was not fun, then either agent with mind immune or the classic transcranial stimulator to counter all mental moves, some even used both. Than it went even further and people started using Juggernaut and Destroyer lol to get 3 mind immune. However, these teams likely sucked to much as sure those characters are mind immune but otherwise they are horrible so people kinda swung back a bit into 2 mind immune + Cloak and Dagger as CD is broken.
Because of this,,,it was still easy to win in attack as 7-8/10 was using Kuurth + CD instead. So it was still TO much staple team set up. Now I use CD in defence as well as they are the best character in the game but at least I change the rest of the team around.
It was very clear and very interesting (at least for me personally as a game balance designer) to see how the utter broken new set was so broken, that 90% where using it and then 90% would auto counter it, so in the end it become bad to use.
It really was this huge swing back and forth, that's why I would of course(if you read my game theory philosophies before) recommend using the safe route.
I went back to Signpost+Sprit Blade to just go with the debuff/dot/life/stamina drain, super safe, of course cube as always then I went with Scroll of Angolob instead of mental immune so that I could remove the mental anguish on my team as I used CD+NUL or CD+IP or CD+Emma Frost, mainly Nul. That's enough to create a very safe damage team that would just demolish all these mental immune teams as even if they used a lot of mental immunity the mind set itself also grants that so most people would have kuurht + agent with mind set + CD or Destroyer.
Then it was a few other teams like Spitfire+CD+agent with mind set(as it does sick damage and reduce your damage and so on so dam good).
All of that was very interesting, but lets talk a little about why the mind set is the best set in the game for the agent!
Why does the mind set work?
I really want to emphasize how the best set has been Demon set, which was released in 2012...that's a season 2 set(that's 29 seasons of no good set items), pretty much all other sets in between was never worth using as they took up to much space for good items, often its a need for 3 or even the whole set of 4 and the mind set is the only set in the game right now where its worth locking away 4 slots.
First of all lets not forget that the demon set got nerfed at least once that made the grief weapon not even halv as good that is a reason why it was not used anymore, but signpost stayed as the single best weapon even without the rest of the parts. (Signpost was of course a big reason why the demon set was so good in the first place as it would fill 1 slot regardless).
The other sets struggle with that it takes up all slots(until the 5 was released) but only 1 item is good. That is the most common problem, this menas you have 3 slots that are just there for passively boosting the last one. Demon set has as mentioned signpost which is a quick action, that means it can be used each turn(as it also has zero cooldown) while buffing the set pieces. That makes it a lot better and while many sets have had QA items most of them have been way to underpowered.
Here instead mind set has completely broken QA, Staff of Agony, which becomes QA if you have the whole set, this is easily the strongest QA ability in the game (given all 4 as otherwise its not qa:), easily the best. Not only can it be used right away with other items from the set, its also the best, but before I go into it, the set has 2 more thing that makes it so viable regardless of their actual power.
Secondly the meta defence item is also QA, so it can be used instead over staff or when staff is on cooldown and both can be used turn 1 for a more defensive tactic.
But lastly and most importantly the psyche operator is a Free action! This is huge as it means it can always be used + 1 QA item and then a third item, this means you can actually use 3 out of 4 parts(or the last item, which likely is the cube) on the same turn. This right away makes this set so much better as the agent can utilize most of it right away.
Then of course each part is also insaly good on its own except the pscye operator I geuss but as its Free action and its debuff, weak mind is super importnat its still a needed part.
So first you use the operator, it does no damage and hit everyone with weak mind. Weak mind makes the target take more damage from psychic attacks and is especially important for mental anguish as with old good Emma Frost asios tactic. It also gives manipulated which stops buff so not to shabby, it would be insanely broken if it instead give maddened as that helps to trigger mental anguish.
This item is bascialy -have 4 set buff, and everyone to have weak mind.
Then we use teh staff of agony, staff as I mentioned is the most broken shet ever. This is the thing that really breaks the game, it does mental anguish to everyone. Which menas they will lose more then 50% of their life when they attack (as with mind weakness) it also does really high damage, this is really unnecessary, just giving everyone mental anguish unblockable would be a good enough for any move. And its QA! with that,,but yeah it also does really high damage for being a QA move + lastly it also gives a new mental dot,,,,this item is just so broken. On low rating when climbing I can easily kill their whole team with this item alone. They will have die as soon as they attack as the dot damage + actual impact damage easy get them into the mental anguish range of death(which is higher on low health opponent 60% roughly)
You always want to use this item over any item.
Then if the opponent have high stats the second QA item can easily solve that, it gives everyone a chance to preemptive interrupt attacks, higher chance if they have weak mind.
This is actually, really important to beat wallet warriors at high rarings as interrupt a big attack from especially Cloak and Dagger can safe the team from losing 50% life. So when I faced someone with about my stats or higher I will always go operator-staff-mental defence.
While if they are weaker I will go and use the rifle.
The mental rifle is actually very good as well. First I thought it was just gonna be an ok addition that was needed to be equipped to get the 4 set bonus. But it does insanely high single target damage, its unblockable/uncounterable as its psychic it also has its own counter/interrupt passive with a higher chance if they have mind weakness.
It becomes extremely buffed if the opponent has weak mind on them, when it attacks, it does more then 200% damage! If that its the case, which it will be turn 1 as you can free action that.
See first of all it does higher damage as they are mental, then it always has a follow up chance this almost become 100% chance to happen when they have the debuff, so at average it does easily 200% more damage. As when it hits a follow up attack that is 125X2 = 250% base damage, which again to emphasize is unblockabe etc. So you can always just shoot down anyone, the counter damage from it also ofc course increased and so on.
This set is easily the best set by a long mile, each part is extremely strong on its own and almost the whole set can be used each turn, while they also buff each other. Many other set do not set up the other parts. With this set you can get everyone down to 50% hp turn 1 and then kill 1 of them with the rifle alone by just using the agent.
However in the end this kind of agent showed up constantly, this guy is both immune to all mental attacks while he also will counter all mental moves.
From this I would say the set should be used like this - Climb to adamantium and then change. Its increidable easy to win with it on the way up there but after that everyone will go mental immune, with Kuurht so extremely common it losses 33% of its effect right away(she can still be hit with the rifle but she cannot have weak mind etc, making it be just low damage uncounterable on her)
Another character that appeared in the top meta was Faiza Hussain.
Even do she sucks. IF she goes first and can set up her blocks shes good but if she ges after ur despair character ( I run 2 on of) she is absolutely useless, one aoe despair form either Cloak and Dagger or Nul (my team) but my CD usually runs endemic that also stops removing debuffs etc, making her 100% useless. She has no offence at all, she is just like Rescue, yes she is a lot better then Rescue but how can she win a 1v1? Its absolutely impossible for her and the agent is usually the one who is left to fend in a 1v1, if you then plan out so she is the last defender. Yeah she has 0% chance to win, no way she can ever beat the agent in 1v1, not that she can beat anyone else really but a drainer/Healer agent with 10% hp and she at 100% will still win easily.
Her passive is pretty cool that it deflects instantly kills so you cannot kill them over her other passive, however she is not protected by it, which is a huge hole in her defence so if she actually manage to set up her buffs(which is happens but like every 1/5 games) you can then just kill her first instead as she does not protect herself.
But usually I just throw aoe despair and ignore her for last. Her design is so flawed, her passive should be that her team is immune to stuff like despair or else she wont work. She has the ability to set up immunity to it but that buff in itself is easily removed by the agent or a character with the right isos/aoe remover.
Only people with full 64x gold weapon in stats boost can use her as they don't die fast enough and then she can actually heal. Otherwise to make her be able to heal you need 2 more defensive characters and those teams are even easier to beat, I saw a few of those like Her and Invisible women etc, they have insanely low damage output. 0% chance to ever win with that in defence. Note that I also have shield breaker on Cds first attack, someone should have shield breaker and on their primary attack its the best aiso for that attack by far (as rest are pretty much nonsense )- second note, even with no shield breaker invisible+hussain will still do zero damage and will eventually die to a signpost agent,,,I am 100% confident I would win that battle with my agent vs them and their defensive agent from the start. 1v3 never having the other 2 characters, really the agent with spirit blade,cube and signpost can beat any super defensive team 1v3 . For that matter the agent with the new mind meta set would also likely win that easy, just set up the mental anguish aoe and counter them every now and then. The staff life drain +cube heal/signpost will be enough to survive.
