We had a little bit of discourse in our clan chat earlier about mr. swords, and I think the consensus is that we’re rather dissatisfied with his recent buff. Obviously it didn’t do nothing for him, but I believe it’s simply the wrong kind of improvement. And while swords is a topic, I feel like it’s a good opportunity to bring up the 3 legends that also fall under this archetype, because they really seem like they need some help too. I’ll talk about each one specifically.
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First off, we have Leogeist. I’m honestly hard pressed to think of a monster that took a bigger nosedive than this poor thing. For a brief period of time he made stun completely irrelevant, but then the chrono killers showed up to ruin his fun… and make him never feel safe out in the open ever again. And then came Angelion, who outclasses him so badly that it’s not even funny. He provides stun protection just like Leo, but he has a MASSIVE presence in the fight that extends far beyond stun counter; he’s a hard counter to poison and sleep, can start dealing critical damage after a single turn, and can even get some crazy revive shenanigans going with his SS. So, in other words, Leo frankly has no reason to exist outside of the hordes event(which he has proved very useful in though, I must add).
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Next is Shiva, whose situation is definitely not as grim as Leo’s. On paper he’s an absolute beast of a supporter, able to keep the entire team breathing all by himself if the cards are played right. In practice? Well, eh… he has his moments. But given the rapidly increasing presence of piercing, and the rising menace of poison threatening to overwhelm his defenses, he just isn’t as formidable as he used to be. Oh, and his crescendo moves? Yeah, sure, that does something for him I suppose.
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Next comes Polaboss, a very clever and amusing twist on Shiva’s role, where instead of being a team player he’s more focused on looking out for the big man. Instead of trying to fill a double niche, most of his resources are committed to getting his crescendo as high as possible; and again, in theory being able to heal yourself off HG every time you hit someone sounds incredible, like a last biter that doesn’t need to be last. But in reality? Well… I dunno. I don’t have him, and I honest to god can’t recall seeing him a single time in pvp, ever. That probably speaks for itself.
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And of course, finally comes Excalibur, or Swords as I affectionately call him because I can’t stand his actual name. His gimmick within a gimmick is his shortcut to reaching a very high crescendo streak, working his way to being able to single sweep at 42 TU or quadruple sweep at 135 TU. Once again, foregoing any alternate sense of identity in favor of a full commitment to the promise of getting big kills. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t seem to have the spice that other mythics do… when he’s on the field he honestly never feels like that big of a threat, just because despite having a more efficient means of building his streak, he simply takes far too long to make a real impact. And it’s here where I have to declare that the crescendo mechanic as a whole is just straight up unviable in pvp. To put it simply… these monsters are slooooooow.
It takes maybe, what, 15 hits to reach a point where it kills reliably? Let’s assume they’re bonused all the way, that’ll be 15 x 42 = 630 TU. That’s a LOT of time. Any monster with survivor can begin to generate real value in less than half that time. Hell, Nova can begin to generate just as much value in a fraction of that time. It’s like driving a convertible in the Indy 500.
Let’s compare swords to voidress. They both have the same end goal, 4 monster sweeping. They both often rely on a large dose of support in order to get to that point as quickly as possible. But thing is, void just doesn’t seem to need it quite as badly. First off there’s her built in defense mechanisms, camo and shield entrance. Secondly, her moves are remarkably low TU, so you could collect her 3 allotted kills in as little as 150-200 TU without assistance from GTs, roughly the same amount of time it takes Swords to recharge a single dance. And Void may have conditions to rely on as opposed to swords who has only to keep on swinging, but she’s got a hell of a lot of options at her disposal; ritual to strategically pick off mons that you don’t need anymore, payback killer to make @NMEGaryOak hella salty, power slash to get rid of an annoying little twerp with HG or shield, and of course eclipse for essentially a free piercing kill right off the bat. Not to mention the option to use bloodbath ahead of schedule to pick off weak enemies if the opportunity arises, could on rare occasion grab 2-3 kills in a single move. Void has tons of unique ways to contribute to the team AS she’s preparing to unleash her true power, meanwhile while swords has 3 support moves, they all require him to put a hard stop on his crescendo streak.
This recent buff of removing the cap on dance seems to suggest that his intended plan is to make a mad dash for the highest crescendo streak he can manage, and that can only reasonably happen with a butt ton of turn givers getting him ready to sweep within a split second. But if you have that many turns to give, why not give it to any other monster with potent, not to mention immediate, sweeping capabilities? Or, you know, Voidress for that matter? Herein lies Swords’ problem; for everyone else, it’s a lovely little bonus if the opportunity happens to arise, but for him, it’s a necessity. He can’t compete if he doesn’t have his team helping him along, can’t compare to the value of other monsters. The accommodation he asks of his team is simply too much. No one’s honestly going to get away with having that many GTs all at once, and even if they don’t get swiftly punished by chrono killers, they’re really putting all their eggs into one basket and leaving no room left for other monsters to keep the enemy at bay. And if the enemy’s stocked up on camo, they’re just done for.
There’s also the “buff” of replacing KBN with stun pulse… although I suppose kbn wasn’t a great fit for him, nothing specifically comes to mind that he’d want to keep off of the field and the high TU stings a lot, I’m not sure I feel a whole lot better about stun pulse. First off, he’s kinda cramping on polaboss’s style. Second, now that he has a stun move he has to fear for his life against scarleguard, who’s just become his brand new hard counter. Him having no hard counters was balanced out by the fact that he could rather easily be shut down by virtually anything without too much hassle provided he hasn’t built up enough yet. And now that he has one… there’s even more expectation for him to become a significant threat that warrants one. And frankly, I still don’t think he’s there.
So in conclusion, these really weren’t the buffs Swords needed. I think if he’s fixing to get buffed again, the scope should not be focused on him alone but rather crescendo as a whole. Whatever value the other 3 have in pvp does not stem from crescendo itself, and that’s no coincidence. The moves themselves need to be more potent, maybe either a higher base power or a steeper ramp up. I really love the concept of crescendo, the long and hard buildup leading up to a stupendous payoff. I would love to see a more patient strategy emerge in this increasingly rushed meta.
