S8 takes: Human Torch needs addressing
Hello; I am here to talk about just one thing, and it's the thing I care about most in this game, bar none: Human Torch. The character of Johnny Storm means a lot to me - I genuinely wish I didn't care so much about playing as him in this game, but I do - and I just want to have fun playing as my favorite superhero in this game where you're supposed to be able to do that (I have already tortured myself with him up to Champion and continue doing so just because I love him, and I do pretty well, but it is painful). As a foreword, I don't want him to be meta, I don't want a "flyer meta" or a "prime Torch" (wasn't around to play as him then anyway, lol); I just want him to be fun to play and not in an awful, weird place with his kit. With that out of the way:
The more I play Season 8, the more I double down on everything I was experiencing already in 7.5, and the more I want to reiterate the main thing Human Torch desperately needs...
He needs durability. REAL, accessible durability of his own (not some more damage reduction that is barely even felt), to free himself from requiring pocketing. More than anything else, he needs - essentially, and at least - what he already had but lost with the Fantastic Four team-up.
If that ability was retooled into a fire theme and baked directly into his own kit with new voice lines, he'd at least be in a relatively okay place.
Right now, he requires pocket healing, and it makes him, frankly, not fun and not a super useful teammate when you could choose another damage who does not require constant pocketing and get more value. And, at the end of the day, his main problem stems from the fact that he has no durability. Yes, he can dash, but once that's over, you're dead meat, because you have nothing else afterward, whereas other, similar heroes do. The idea that he should rely exclusively on mobility to survive came about after the team-up was removed, but that was also ended with his new cooldown. He needs genuine durability now more than ever, especially because it was something he already had once, and it was not overpowered/didn't cause major problems for those fighting him. All it did was help him not require pocket healing.
Johnny is meant to play close: the damage from his primary fire begins dropping off at 15m. He needs durability to even do his job and use his kit without the aforementioned constant pocketing. Not only does he need it to achieve it, but he needs it for newcomers to his kit to understand how his primary fire functions instead of playing so far away, because they're so weak, but still expecting to get value from his primary. And, again, it's actually exhausting playing as him and getting good value. You're better off swapping to someone else, especially if you don't want to explode from cortisol and struggle with his 0 durability and beg for pocket healing. You have to give 400% as Johnny whereas you give 100% on others, and it really hits hard against the fun factor - or, frankly, just the usefulness factor, exhausting yourself on a hero with a sub-par kit when you could just pick a better one instead.
The Fantastic Four team-up shield was already in the game; it was tested, and it was NOT overpowered. Johnny needs something like it in his own kit. Freeing him from needing pocket healing should've been the primary goal of his tweaks in the first place, so it's time to see that through.
He had the team-up, in fact, when he actually had more versatility than he does now in the right hands. This is not a jab at the dash; I am whatever on the dash now, and obviously I'm not here to ask for a reversion. However, the fact remains, his kit was altered so that he would have less ability to play into poke ("movement more predictable"), and that is exactly what has happened. Giving him durability now would absolutely not be overpowered, given what he was already doing before when he had it. All it would do is help him actually have a leg of his own to stand on, instead of needing that from his healers.
I am begging the devs to give him some durability. His kit could use a lot of help and tweaking and better characterization and various things to make him smoother and simply more fun to play, but what he needs first and foremost is still durability to free him from needing pocket healing. Playing as him right now is painful, and the most painful part is needing those pocket heals.
Thanks for coming to my ted talk.
Bonus rounds and further thoughts...
- Human Torch's entire kit could seriously use sprucing up, QOL tweaking, expanding, and generally just better characterization. It's been altered and nerfed to many times that it is a confused mess now (and IMO it's very weird and out-of-character to make Johnny Storm basically an escape artist assassin like he's an actual ninja). With each new hero, we see more robust and characterized kits, while certain older heroes like Johnny are left not only in the dust but also rotting in a corner. There's so much more than could be done with his character, and it's depressing how dull he is overall.
- The fact that he has no flamethrower is just sad. He deserves a flamethrower he can swap to as secondary fire, on a resource meter, to protect himself from close-range attacks (especially since he has no reflection of the fact that he is on fire, like dealing some damage to melee attackers). If nothing else, it'd be cool to have one just to reflect that, well, he should have one because he uses similar abilities a lot, to say the least, in comics and other media.
- His primary fire is garbage and could really stand to be improved somehow. It is not even a secret that it's the hardest thing to hit with in the game - including when you should absolutely be connecting a shot but are getting no reg. I'm not asking for him to be hitscan (I genuinely don't want him to be), but it could just use some tweaking to make it less awful.
- I am personally quite upset that there is no reflection whatsoever in his kit of his heat and energy absorption. It's an important part of his abilities in the comics. If nothing else, this could be used in some way to give him some semblance of durability. Torch is a character who is virtually immune to most forms of damage - he absorbs heat and energy, he melts bullets, he is so hot many enemies cannot approach, and even when physically beaten down, he will get right back up again (it is commented on in assorted comics; even Spider-Man mentions it when he slams Johnny headfirst into a wall ["What's that guy made out of anyway? He's already recovering!", just one example of many; Fantastic Four #207]), and he is not infrequently protecting others from various explosions, nukes, novas, etc, etc. He shouldn't be so weak as he is in this game. It's just weird and out of character, although so is the fact that he is being pigeonholed into a flanker role in Rivals (despite his current pocket heal requirement), whereas he ordinarily fights alongside his family/team.
- Poor Torch needs a team-up. He's overdue one now. Again: removing the Fantastic Four team-up crippled his durability - it was all he had. And he hasn't gotten anything since, in his kit or even in another team-up (that he will then rely on and it'll inevitably be pulled out from under him again, hence why the durability should just be in his own kit).
- Crazy mega bonus round: if he is remaining crippled because of fear of a flyer meta, then make his kit robust enough that he isn't always flying, and let his flight mode be as super fast and dangerous as it should be because it is not permanent. Flame on/off, spending time fighting on the ground alongside his team before flaming on to lay down zones and meteor back down to fight on the ground again and build up heat and basically be durable brawl alongside his team except with his 1 long-cooldown meteor he can use to crash in after achieving flight. Yes, I know this is an absolute pipe dream and people will tell me I'm being dumb, but I don't care, I think it'd be awesome, more interesting, better characterize him, and let us get to see him flame off once and a while (plus actually flame on in-game), while addressing the fact that being a flyer is keeping him in the gutter because the devs don't know how to handle them. We've got such robust kits now that it'd be possible at this point, and frankly, it still wouldn't be as robust as some.
- Again: there is so much more that could be done with his kit to make him fun and interesting and reflect more of his abilities from the comics. Yes, I know - every hero is in that kind of situation in their own ways, and because of game balance, we can't reflect "all" of their abilities, etc. But as I am a Torch main and a Johnny fangirl, I'm here to talk about Torch, and it is sad that his kit doesn't really make you feel like you are the Human Torch essentially made of fire and with full power over fire except for, basically, the pyro prisons (which can be very finicky with placement) and exploding people with a meteor. There's just so many more fun and interesting things they could do with it without making it broken or overpowered - just more characterized and, well, fiery.
Ultimately, I'm still here talking about Human Torch all over the place simply because he is my favorite superhero, I love Johnny Storm, he's given me comfort and joy since my childhood and gotten me through a lot of hard times. It would be an absolute joy to play as him in a game like Marvel Rivals. I love his design, his animations, his voice, everything - but his kit, even after I have been playing with it up to and as a Champion, is simply a mess and is really sad to play with, and it doesn't feel like how Johnny Storm should play, anyway, as some kind of escape artist ninja with no durability to stand his ground, but it's what we have, so... I just hope he gets durability.
As I've said, I don't care about him being meta. I really don't. I simply want him to not be the wreck that he is right now and be on even slightly more even footing with the rest of the roster. I don't want him to be sky-high on top running lobbies, because then we're back around to getting pounded with nerfs, and that's the last thing I want. I just want him to not suck and feel awful to play. You have to play so hard and get so high on cortisol to get value out of him, and you had better be pocketed, and it's exhausting when you just want to play as your favorite superhero in a superhero game.
If nothing else, if absolutely nothing else, he desperately needs durability of his own so he doesn't require pocket healing. He had it in the FF team-up, and it didn't break the game; he needs it in his own kit.
p.s.: how about also giving Johnny one o' them really nice torn-up-clothes skins where we can see his abs, and like maybe a dance emote, that'd be super cool
I just really want Johnny to get some proper love in this game so he can be fun to play like other heroes. Okay bye