Marvel Contest of Champions Welcomes Golden Age Vision (Aarkus)

A Golden Age character from Marvel Comics officially enters The Contest: the Alien Crime Fighter, The Vision (Aarkus)! When you think The Vision, typically you think of the creation of Ultron, not Aarkus. But we have a brief bio and his ability list today.

“Vision, whose true name is Aarkus, is an alien law enforcement officer from a dimension known as Smokeworld. After being accidentally contacted by a scientist from Earth, Aarkus came to our dimension to fight crime. He has the ability to control gasses, smoke and cold, even teleporting to the far side of the world using little more than a smoldering cigar.”

Vision’s (Aarkus’) Mechanics:

Aarkus starts every fight with a Power Gain Buff and gains more over time. As long as he has at least one of these Buffs, he can inflict Armor Break Debuffs onto his Opponent just by staying near them. While under the effect of an Armor Break, Opponents also take Coldsnap damage over time. To end a fight, Aarkus can convert his Armor Breaks into a very long Armor Shattered Debuff, which shuts down Robot systems and lets him deal bursts of bonus Energy damage with his Special 1 Attack and Special 2 Attack.

Base Stats & Abilities:

*All stats based on 4-Star, Rank 5, Level 50, Signature Level 99

HEALTH: 15660 ATTACK: 1148
MAX PI:
WITHOUT SIGNATURE: 3879
WITH SIGNATURE (99): 4756

*All stats based on 5-Star, Rank 5, Level 65, Signature Level 200

HEALTH: 31398 ATTACK: 2301

MAX PI:
WITHOUT SIGNATURE: 7807
WITH SIGNATURE (200): 10580

Character Class: Cosmic:

Basic Abilities: Power Gain, Armor Break, Coldsnap, Fury

Strengths:

• Power Gain
  • Aarkus starts each fight with a pretty strong Power Gain Buff, and gains an additional one every 10 seconds. Once he has a few of these, they more than compensate for his decreased base Power Rate, and he’s able to use Special Attacks way more frequently than the average Champion.

• Anti-Power Control
  • Aarkus has a few abilities which punish Champions who try to control his Power. He reduces the strength of Power Drain effects and the duration of Power Lock against him. He also gains an additional Power Gain buff whenever he receives a Power Drain or Lock.

• Armor Break and Armor Shattered
  • While he has at least one Power Gain Buff, Aarkus applies an Armor Break Debuff every 2.3 seconds, just by being near them. These Armor Breaks are also Paused while close to Aarkus, so he’s able to build up quite a few, and deal progressively more damage to the Opponent. Finally, he can convert all these Armor Breaks into a very long Armor Shattered Debuff, which has a higher overall potency and shuts down Robot systems for its duration.

Weaknesses:

• Consistent Nullify – Doctor Strange, Symbiote Supreme
  • Aarkus needs Power Gain Buffs before he has access to any of his other abilities. He gains one of these every 10 seconds, but if an Opponent is able to consistently remove them with a Nullify effect, they’ll keep Aarkus under control.

• Coldsnap and Armor Break Immunity – Mephisto, Human Torch, Thing
  • Aarkus’ other major threat is that while Opponents have an Armor Break or are Armor Shattered, he deals Coldsnap damage to them just by being near them. But if the Opponent is Immune to any of those effects, they can just ignore this damage entirely.

ABILITIES:

Passive:

• Aarkus reduces the potency of Power Drain effects by 80%, and the duration of Power Lock effects by 50%.
• Aarkus gains 15% less Power from landing and receiving Hits.

Power of Smokeworld – Buff – Max: 5

• Aarkus draws strength from the Smokeworld dimension at all times. He starts the fight with a Power Gain Buff, and gains 1 every 10 second(s).
• These Buffs last indefinitely. The first one grants Aarkus 4% of a Bar of Power every 1 second(s), and every subsequent Power Gain Buff is 33.33% less effective.
• He also gains one whenever his Power is Drained or he receives a Power Lock Debuff.

Developer’s Note: If one of the Power Gain Buffs is nullified, but some are left over, the next Power Gain Buff he receives will replace the one that was nullified, rather than being less effective than the ones that were left over.

Frozen Air:

• While Aarkus has a Power Gain Buff, he freezes the area near him. Every 2.30 second(s) the Opponent spends near Aarkus, they gain an Armor Break Debuff, decreasing Armor Rating by 222.22 for 5 second(s). These Armor Breaks are capped at 10.
• Armor Break Debuffs on the Opponent are Paused while they are near Aarkus.
• While the Opponent is near Aarkus and they have an Armor Break or Armor Shattered Debuff, they also gain a Coldsnap Debuff, dealing 126.28 Energy damage every 0.50 second(s). Opponents under a Coldsnap cannot Evade attacks.

Developer’s Note: If the Opponent moves away from Aarkus, the 2.3 second Armor Break timer is entirely reset. So Opponents can prevent the Armor Break by backing away from Aarkus right before the timer expires. As soon as the Armor Break activates, or the Opponent comes close when they already have one, they’ll start taking damage.

Special Attacks:

• Hits from Special Attacks Pause all Armor Break Debuffs on the Opponent until the end of the Special Attack.

Developer’s Note: The main reason for this is so Aarkus doesn’t have to worry about getting too far from the Opponent during his Special Attacks.

Special 1 Attack – Spiral of Smoke: Aarkus rises up on a tornado of smoke and vapor, then slams into his Opponent, knocking them back with the force of a gale.

• Each hit refreshes all Armor Break Debuffs on the Opponent.
• If the Opponent is Armor Shattered, this Attack deals 2066.4 bonus Energy damage.

Developer’s Note: Aarkus is most effective when he can get 10 Armor Breaks on the Opponent before converting them into Armor Shattered.The refresh on The Vision’s Special 1 Attack makes it easier for him to get those 10 Armor Breaks.

Special 2 Attack – Blizzard Blast: Aarkus conjures a blast of frozen energy, snow, and ice, chilling his Opponents to the core.

• Replace all Armor Break Debuffs on the Opponent with one Armor Shattered Debuff. For each Armor Break removed, this Debuff lasts 5 seconds and reduces Armor Rating by 352.94.
• While Armor Shattered is active, Opponents cannot suffer from further Armor Break Debuffs nor activate their Armor Buffs. Additionally, this Debuff shatters Robot Champion’s systems, reducing their Ability Accuracy and Power Gain by 100%.
• If the Opponent was already Armor Shattered, instead this Attack deals 2066.4 bonus Energy damage.

Developer’s Note: This is the Special Attack that Aarkus wants to work towards in the initial stages of the fight. In addition to Armor Shattered being potent against Robots, it has a stronger Armor reduction than his individual Armor Breaks, and is used to trigger bonus effects on his other Special Attacks.

Special 3 Attack – Talk to the Hand: Aarkus vanishes into the ground in a puff of smoke, then uses the energy of Smokeworld to grow his hand to gargantuan size. He toys with the Opponent for a brief time, before picking them up and slamming them into the wall.

• Aarkus increases the area his abilities affect to cover the entire field for 20 seconds.
• If the Opponent is Armor Shattered when this Attack is activated, gain a Fury Buff increasing Attack Rating by 2066.4 for 20 seconds.

Developer’s Note: For 20 seconds Aarkus doesn’t have to worry about keeping the Opponent in-range to apply Armor Break and Coldsnap to them. And if they’re affected by Armor Shattered, he gets a nice long Fury buff which increases the damage of both his regular hits, and his Coldsnap. This attack is great when you just want to let loose on the Opponent.

Signature Ability – Smoke and Mirrors: Like smoke slipping through your fingers, this Signature Ability makes Aarkus even harder to pin down.

• Passive:
  • Whenever Aarkus gains a non-Damaging Debuff, he has a 80.08% chance to Purify one of each non-Damaging Debuff on him. This cannot trigger more than once every 9.50 seconds

Developer’s Note: Important to note that it purifies one of each type of non-Damaging Debuff on him, so triggering this can have consequences for more than just the Debuff that triggered it.

Synergy Bonuses:

• FIRST OF HIS NAME – Unique – 5-Star and up
  • With Vision, Vision (Age of Ultron)
  • Vision (Aarkus): Armor Shattered also decreases Ability Accuracy and Power Gain of Tech Champions who rely on Metal.
  • Vision, Vision (Age of Ultron): Power Burn effects also grant a Fury Buff for 6 seconds. The Fury potency increases with the amount of Power Burned.

• DRY ICE – Unique – 4-Star and up
  • With Iceman, Mysterio
  • Vision (Aarkus): Increase the duration of Armor Break Debuffs by 2 seconds flat.
  • Iceman: Increase the duration of Frostbite Passives by 4 seconds flat.
  • Mysterio: Increase the duration of Reflection and Frenzy gas by 3 seconds flat.

• SENIOR’S DISCOUNT – Unique – 3-Star and up
  • With Black Widow (Claire Voyant), Old Man Logan, Captain America
  • Synergy Members: Special Attacks cost 15% less Power.

• TEAMMATES – Unique – 2-Star and up
  • With Doctor Strange, Winter Soldier, Captain America (WW2), Namor
  • All Champions gain +5% Perfect Block Chance.

Recommended Masteries:

• Enhanced Fury
  • The Fury on Aarkus’ Special Attack 3 is already quite strong, but it can be improved even more with the Enhanced Fury mastery. And as mentioned above, this will also increase the damage he deals with Coldsnap.

• Despair
  • Aarkus has a very easy time putting lots of Armor Break Debuffs on the Opponent. While he can only stack up to 10 of them, that’s more than enough to fully suppress the Opponent’s regeneration effects via the Despair mastery.