Astrix PvP Review

Haven’t done one of these in a while, but I’m bored so here we go. I will rate each aspect of the hero on a 1-10 scale before giving a total rating and conclusion.

Core stats (6/10):

Astrix has very high offensive mods, which is important for any DPS that doesn’t have broken (OP) passive skills. The meta for over a year now has been all about using high weapon damage to kill at least one enemy in the first 10-15 seconds and using that early momentum to steamroll. However, she takes a significant hit to her rating due to her Bio elemental classification. Ever since Panzer lost the ability to blow up Flatline in 5 seconds, Flatline’s gold took its inevitable place at the pinnacle of the metagame. HHG still fails to realize how absurd ‘Stay with me’ really is, so it continues to define the entire meta. Ironically ‘Stay with me’ is also what makes the high-offense, low-defense DPS viable, otherwise Astrix would remain seriously vulnerable to energy DPS.

HHG has also significantly buffed shields over the last several months, with massive buffs for existing shields and the introduction of multiple new shields. Shields can multiply the effect of elemental resistance - anyone who has ever tried to use a Bio hero to kill a shielded Flatline knows exactly how pathetic your DPS becomes.

The dominance of Ronin on the DPS side of the meta and Flatline on the Healing side of the meta has pushed Bio DPS to borderline irrelevance in PvP. If Astrix were a mech hero I would have given her 9 or 10 in this category.

Weapon (7/10):

There’s basically only a few things that make an exceptional weapon in this game. Shotguns with tight spread or high pellets are exceptional. Automatics with minimal spread are also exceptional. Weapons with a large enough mag to let you 1-mag enemies are also exceptional. One-shot weapons with high accuracy are also exceptional due to the ability to land consistent headshots. Unfortunately Astrix’s sniper has none of these traits, the spread alone will cost you a decent chunk of your DPS on small targets. However, it still has a low RoF which is the next best thing given how armor works in this game. Low RoF = more damage per shot = enemy armor has much less impact.

Bronze - Boomerang (1/10):

Just awful. On its own, this skill ranks among the worst active skills in existence. It has a longer charge than most bronze (just under 20 seconds with landing almost all of your shots and no interruptions) and yet fails the most fundamental of tests for a pure DPS ability: doing more damage than just firing your weapon. This skill also has a fairly slow travel time and can easily be dodged, and sometimes it just decides it doesn’t want to return (like when a target dies). It’s a dead horse by now but like most other targeted skills you also face Mandrake hell when you are trying to finish off a weak target but the invis denies you an opportunity to Boomerang them.

Obviously her passives improve things but it’s just a lazy design to have a skill be completely useless and then add passives which only affect that skill and make it useful, why not just have a useful skill and make the passives a truly passive effect and not just “Makes ____ skill better”?

Silver - Slugger Shot (4/10)

Good damage, a stun, what’s not to love? Well for starters it’s got a 35 second charge time that ranks among the longest out there. The projectile speed is slow, extremely obvious, and you have very limited control over who it hits, on some maps you’re just stuck accepting that it will hit a frontliner and accomplish nothing. The stun is so short it seems downright pointless since a stagger already “stuns” for over a second.

Gold - Wingclip (8/10):

This is the only aspect of Asterix that has potential. This can basically increase the damage of Boomerage by 700% and make it into a serious DPS threat. The big downsides are that its completely dependent on Boomerang, that it is Bio damage, and that it relies on the horrendous “damaged by” mechanic that rarely gets brought up.

The last part is a quirk of the game that didn’t really come up much more than 6-7 months ago when shields were pretty niche. However in the flood of shield heroes and shield buffs we’ve seen, it’s now a critical aspect of balance with “damaged by” effects being completely neutralized by shields. Since this passive is such a critical part of Asterix’s kit and her Boomerang damage is so pathetic it will almost never break a shield on its own, the result is that shields will utterly ruin your day. Bio heroes have a particularly hard time with shields too, so its just salt in the wound for Asterix.

Platinum - Bird of Prey (6/10):

Another Boomerang-exclusive passive. This one gives a moderate chance to bounce, the bounce range is large but 60% makes it too inconsistent to rely on. At least it uses the “strikes” as opposed to “damaged by” mechanic but having it bounce between shielded targets means almost nothing without the gold skill triggering too. The heal is solid, a rarity for DPS heroes, but you still need bounce RNG to get a significant amount. The slow travel time can also screw you as it can take several seconds for the boomerang to return with a potentially life-saving heal.

— Overall (6/10) —

She’s a one trick pony and that pony is Boomerang with both passives. There are games where you get multiple bounces against unshielded enemies and rack up a really nice amount of damage, but those are in the minority and tend to be the sort of opponents you would’ve won against anyway. Just like so many other heroes she is made almost irrelevant by Flatline, Shield spam, and Mandrake.

17 Likes

Yep, bio dps is awful in pvp because of flatline and ronin meta, ifbthey have a shield she is useless, odachi is irrelevent in pvp just because he is a bio hero. If you go against any balanced team with flatline and they know what theyre doing its hard to win. This was very well put together agree 100 percent

1 Like

To help make bio heroes more relevant I would like to see Flatline’s revive only work once per hero just like Ifrit. It gets a little tiring killing the same hero 3 times. This would also help clear up the meta a little bit.

I know that this may not be a popular suggestion. But I still think it’s needed.

6 Likes

Another thorough and insightful review from you. This is tremendously helpful for those of us that haven’t had a chance to fully use her yet.

1 Like

It really is night and day how I feel about bio dps when Flatline is on the enemy team. It literally goes from “ok I’ve got a plan for victory!” to “well shit, time to take an L”.

The fact it’s been a full year of Bio DPS being largely shut out of the meta (exception: Mauler during his brief permastun reign) by a single hero is insane.

3 Likes

Make Bio Great Again!!!

4 Likes