Yup.  Gotta keep up with the latest nonsense if you wanna stay remotely competitive in arena.  I do like the Provoke change so far but wouldnt mind if they added another counter mechanics.  Theres some really good arena provoke options but the pool is relatively small still. 

For my Account, Harima & Freyja are getting a bit more LA playtime, but they were already on my go-to list since I use both of them regularly in 3v3.

I don't really have any other Provoker that I consider good enough to take a spot.

Love it or hate, the thing about how SS was introduced was that it introduced a Meta-changing gearset, while simultaneously making a group of toons that were largely irrelveant, not just relevant, but Meta.  Except for Shazaar for his speed aura, almost no one was using Bombers in PVP before Stoneskin. SS breathed new life into that group of toons, and then, later, did the same for HP Burners.

Mercurial did not do that, and it won't do that for Provokers, even now that it has been added.  What it did do was double-down on Lockout, but Lockout was already king since everyone was already picking Fabian first anyway.... 

IMO, Putting Chronophage in Grim Forest and letting everyone build up huge supplies of that Gearset would've been a much better idea.

The best provoke champs were already Meta or Off-Meta anyway.  So agree really not that much change there.

I guess there is always Tormin too.  He and Hilvi are a solid pair, but I don't actually use them in PVP.  

This set it's not for kraken.... The problem is that it's free. And is there a way to counter a full-Mercurial Predator with this set?! Haha, PvP is taking a nasty turn

It was awful; I had stopped the opposing team's three-man revive, but then I got slaughtered one by one 

Someone, I think it was Gareth, suggested that if a champ evades and/or total guards an attack, (looking specifically at Predator) then it shouldn;t trigger a counterattack. Small change, but I think it would be a good idea.

I never said that.  Were that to happen, it would hose my evade/mercurial team significantly!  Heathen...seize the rabble rouser!  😂

Apologies. I try to give credit, but i have messed it up this time.

Luckily, there are content creators like BigPoppa— someone of substance who admits just how much this set sucks. Watch the video, and Plarium, take a good hard look at this.

He was also one of the loudest CC critics of Polymorph, not that all the noise did much good.  When they rebalanced Blessings, they actually made Polymorph stronger. 

It took a dedicated counter (Wand of Submission) to significantly lessen the presence of Polymorph.  

I'm firmly in DoppiaN's camp on this one — every other set gets used up on your turn, but Mercurial's block lingering for three turns while Regenerate keeps ticking feels like it breaks that basic rule and makes fights way too monotonous. I've been running Brogni as the semi-counter too, and it works okay-ish, but relying on one specific champion's passive reflect to answer a whole gearset is not a healthy meta. And WileyMan's point about it hurting lower-level accounts rings true — a set that just shuts out incoming damage disproportionately punishes people who can't stack the same gear. Stoneskin was rough at launch, but at least there were answers for it; Mercurial dropping with no counter feels like the bigger design miss.

What did the Dev's say about Reflect Damage & Mercurial?  If that doesn't work, it definitely should!

....and the comment above me is most likely a Bot, but there are no suspect links in there yet.  

Yeah same account that was sketchy in another post.  Lemme see what they said...

FYI having a lot of fun with the duo again in PvP. 

Buff info actually helpful here.

i

thnx

There were no answers to Stone Skin at launch and it was just as ubiquitous and miserable. You had to run slow high res builds and wait out Stone Skin a lot of the time. This was during the UDK era and man, it was not fun.

The set is fairly easy to pick up and Provoke definitely helps. That said, the biggest offenders are the champs that are far far overtuned (Solanar, Tek, Sabrael, etc.) in concert with the meta set, as well as some of the hilarious overtuned relics juxtaposed with a plethora of useless legendary/mythic relics.

SS was released with bombs as a counter from the very beginning, with HPB added later. 

Note that we are replying to a Bot. 

Options were quite terrible until Gaius and Gnishak were released. Could just cleanse bombs too easily back then. 

Will yeet if/when needed.