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Photon is a Science Champion. Being a Science Champion, she has a Class Bonus against Mystic Champions, but has a disadvantage against Skill Champions.
Bio[]
Monica Rambeau was a harbor patrol officer in the Navy when she was bombarded with extra-dimensional energy, allowing her to convert her body mass into any form of energy on the electromagnetic spectrum. She has since led the Avengers (ask her about it) and fought Galactus, going by the names Captain Marvel (before Carol Danvers ever used the title) and Spectrum along the way before settling on Photon.
Mechanics[]
Photon is all about Debuffing her Opponent, building her connection to the Electromagnetic Spectrum, and finally unleashing her Pure Light Form to utterly overwhelm their defenses. She has multiple potent tools for chasing down dangerous mystic defenders, including the ability to Parry Non-Contact attacks and strong counters to Miss mechanics.
Abilities[]
Living Energy – Always Active
- When Stunned, Photon loses control of her solid form and gains a 100% Untouchable Passive for 2.5 seconds. If an Opponent Misses during this effect, it goes on cooldown for 8 seconds.
- Photon’s altered body composition grants her Immunity to all Bleed and Power Steal effects.
- Photon can trigger the Parry Mastery against non-contact attacks, and all of her attacks deal Energy Damage.
- Whenever the Opponent is inflicted with a Debuff, Photon inflicts a non-stacking 80% Petrify Passive for 0.5 seconds.
- If the Opponent has the Willpower Mastery active, it is removed.
Dev Notes: Photon’s Untouchable can be put on cooldown, but she makes it difficult to stick to a normal Parry and combo rhythm. This same ability can also save her against dangerous Stuns.
The Petrify Passive ensures Photon gets some mileage even out of Purified Debuffs, and helps mitigate many dangerous Mystic threats despite its short duration.
The Willpower removal ensures attackers see her Debuffs as a threat rather than a source of free healing, but can also save an opponent from dying purely due to Willpower Reversal.
Basic Attacks
- Photon’s Medium Attacks cannot Miss.
- Both Champions’ first Medium Attack inflicts a 10% Suppression Debuff on Photon’s Opponent for 5 seconds.
- Photon’s first and third Light Attacks inflict a 397.06 Energy Vulnerability Debuff for 10 seconds.
- The first hit of either Champion’s Heavy Attack inflicts a non-stacking Sunder Debuff on Photon’s Opponent for 15 seconds.
Dev Notes: Photon has other ways to counter Miss more completely, but she at least doesn’t have to worry about accidentally intercepting Spidey Supreme, and she can comfortably punish Specials through troublesome Miss abilities.
All of Photon’s basic attacks have a powerful Debuff associated with them, and both the Suppression and the Sunder also apply when the Attacker performs those actions! Sunder is particularly helpful against tanky Mystics with resistance to Critical Hits, like Rintrah or Doom.
Electromagnetic Charges
- Photon gains Electromagnetic Charges in various ways that persist between fights. Max stacks: 25.
- +1 Charge when the Opponent is inflicted with a Debuff, or when the Opponent activates a Special Attack.
- +4 Charges when causing the Opponent to Miss.
Dev Notes: This is your primary resource for ramping Photon. As with Captain Marvel (MCU), these persist across fights, allowing Photon to accelerate through a quest board and making her more dangerous after knocking out an Attacker. These charges ramp with any Debuff, including those from Quest Nodes.
Pure Light Form
- While at 10 Charges or more, Dodging back and holding Block for 1.2 seconds or being Knocked Down pushes Photon into her Pure Light Form and grants the following effects. This happens automatically at max Charges, or when Photon activates a Special Attack with at least 15 Charges as a Defender.
- Gain an indefinite Fury Passive for every 5 Charges, each increasing Attack by +1058.5.
- Photon cannot Miss, and personal Debuffs expire 50% more slowly.
- Photon cannot gain Electromagnetic Charges and each Charge lasts 0.9 seconds, falling off one at a time. All effects are removed when Charges fall to zero.
Dev Notes: This is your goal in building charges, and what you should fear on defense (note the next header as well). There are four ways to enter Pure Light Form. Getting to max charges will do it automatically, and either getting knocked down or dodging back and holding block at 10+ charges also does it. These three triggers are the same as for Captain Marvel (MCU). A defending Photon will also enter this mode when activating a Special Attack at 15+ charges, making it a bit harder to ignore the mode altogether.
Note that the Furies you gain from this mode are set when you enter it. Sometimes it may be worth it to enter the form early to get earlier access to utility at the cost of reduced damage. Your Debuffs will actually expire more slowly – this isn’t increased duration for new effects, but instead allows any Debuffs already active to stick around for longer as well.
Signature Ability[]
The Full Spectrum
- Photon’s improved control over the Electromagnetic Spectrum grants her Immunity to all Neutralize effects.
- For every Debuff on the Opponent, their Block Proficiency is reduced by 752.38 and Photon’s is increased by half as much.
- Photon has a 65% chance to inflict one of her personal Energy Vulnerability Debuffs on the Opponent when struck by or Blocking a Light Attack.
Dev Notes: Immediately upon awakening, Photon becomes fully immune to Neutralize, allowing her to freely parry Wiccan and ignore most of Rintrah’s threats (giving her more time to focus on that massive health pool).
The other two bullets scale with Signature Level and significantly improve her offensive and defensive potential. Energy Vulnerabilities both increase Photon’s damage and ramp her towards Pure Light Form. Extra Block Proficiency makes blocking Special Attacks as a way to set up punishing them significantly more sustainable, and reducing her opponent’s makes her more dangerous even for opponents who can block Unblockable Attacks.
Special Attacks[]
- While in Pure Light Form, Photon’s Special Attacks cannot be avoided with the Dexterity Mastery.
- Electromagnetic Charges pause during the Opponent’s Special Attacks, and for 3 seconds when Photon Punishes the Opponent’s Special Attacks.
Dev Notes: Yup. She turns off Dexterity. This is only during Pure Light Form and only during Special Attacks, but you’ll want a plan for dealing with either the form itself or with these beams that doesn’t rely on that mastery.
Offensively, this pause on punishing Special Attacks is your main tool for getting as much mileage out of Pure Light Form as possible, so plan out your openings ahead of time.
Special Attack 1 – Light is Faster Still
- On activation, inflict a 10% Overload Debuff for 10 seconds. If Pure Light Form is active, inflict a second Overload Debuff.
- In Pure Light Form, the final hit is Passively Unblockable except against Well-Timed Blocks.
Dev Notes: This is your main Special Attack for scaling your damage. Overload (as seen on Dani Moonstar) is the energy form of Trauma, and deals Energy Damage equal to a percentage of recent hit damage when landing a hit or striking into blocks.
The last hit being Unblockable is a definite threat, but there is enough of a windup during the first two hits that blocking them and then Parrying the last hit is a real option with some practice.
Special Attack 2 – Letting Loose
- The final hit inflicts a Taunt Debuff for 10 seconds.
- In Pure Light Form, this attack is Passively Unblockable, Electromagnetic Charges are paused for the duration, and Photon gains a 100% Untouchable Passive for 3 seconds after the final hit.
Dev Notes: On offense, this Special Attack is particularly helpful for managing tempo. The Taunt keeps the AI throwing specials for you to punish, reduces incoming damage (it has the standard 40% potency), and will last twice as long while benefiting from Pure Light Form’s reduced expiry rate. The Untouchable can also provide you with an easy opening afterwards.
On defense, this Special Attack is THE threat. Full screen beam attacks that cannot be blocked (by most champions), cannot Miss, and cannot be avoided with Dexterity are scary, so if you don’t have a plan for dealing with them in some other way (such as Evasion), try to avoid this Special Attack entirely.
Special Attack 3 – Microwave Burst Barrage
- Max stacks of Electromagnetic Charges increases by 5 until the end of the fight. This effect can occur 3 times.
- If at or above 20 Charges, gain a non-stacking Regeneration Passive, healing 3370.6 Health over 8 seconds. This Passive pauses for 0.5 seconds when the Opponent is struck.
Dev Notes: This Special Attack is mostly for use in longer fights. It doesn’t grant you Charges itself, but increasing max Charges by 5 means that the next time you enter Pure Light Form, you’ll have an extra Fury, up to a cap of 8 of them after throwing this attack three times.
The Regeneration effect on this attack is fairly small by itself, but if you can stay aggressive (and weave in some well-timed strikers) to extend its duration, you can get quite a bit of health out of it.
Synergy Bonuses[]
Synergy Bonuses[]
| Synergy | Partner(s) | Effect(s) |
|---|---|---|
| Monochrome | 
|
Photon: Reduce the potency of incoming Degeneration effects by 20% for each unique personal Debuff on the Opponent. Mister Negative: When activating his personal Evade, inflict a non-stacking Slow Debuff for 5 seconds. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies. |
| The Marvels |  
|
Synergy: Punishing the Opponent’s Special Attack with a Heavy Attack grants additional benefits. Photon: Pause Electromagnetic Charges for an additional 3 seconds. Captain Marvel: Gain 2 Energy Charges. Ms. Marvel (Kamala Khan): Refresh up to 3 personal Buffs. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies. |
| Nextwave | 
|
Photon: Unblockable hits deal 4% of Attack as a burst of Direct Damage for each personal Debuff on the Opponent. Elsa Bloodstone: When Counter-Attacking with her Revolver, Elsa inflicts a Slow Passive for 2.5 seconds. She cannot Miss while this effect is active. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies. |
| Mighty Avengers |   
|
Mighty Avengers: +200 Physical Resistance per Debuff on the Opponent. Unique Synergy: Does not stack with duplicate synergies. |
Strengths and Weaknesses[]
Strengths[]
- Rare Immunities
- Photon is one of three Champions immune to Power Steal, and one of a short list who is immune to Neutralize (with her sig), giving her an edge against some annoying Mystics.
- Miss Counter
- Between her Mediums, which can never Miss, and her Pure Light Form, which allows her to bypass Miss effects in general, Photon is one of the best counters to annoying defenders like Ebony Maw and Spider-Man (Sorcerer Supreme).
- Dangerous Defender
- Photon has several potent defensive threats, most of which can quickly end a fight. Answers exist to these threats, but using them properly before she ramps up will be a challenge.
Weaknesses[]
- Debuff Reliance
- Photon is less Debuff-reliant than some Science champions, in that she can ramp and access her Passive Petrifies even if her Debuffs are Purified, but she slows down considerably without access to the tempo and damage she has when they stick around.
- Ability Accuracy Reduction
- Photon ramps by applying Debuffs, so anything that prevents the Debuffs in the first place will stop her cold.
- Unpunishable Specials
- Photon relies pretty heavily on pausing her peak output by punishing the Opponent’s Special Attacks. Animations that make this difficult will slow her down significantly.
- Block/Evade Unblockable:
- Bringing a champion who can block Unblockable special attacks like Mister Sinister, Mole Man and those that can evade special attacks like Spider-Man (Stark-Enhanced), Spider-Gwen as well as Silk can help avoid Photon's dangerous special attacks when she is in Pure Light form.
- Miss counter
- Champions like both Daredevils, Omega Sentinel, Vox and Bullseye can bypass Photon's untouchable mechanic when she is stunned.
References[]
[]
 List of Science Champions
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Playable: Abomination ● Abomination (Immortal) ● Ant-Man ● Anti-Venom ● Captain America ● Captain America (Infinity War) ● Captain America (WWII) ● Cassie Lang ● Count Nefaria ● Electro ● Henchpool ● Hulk ● Hulk (Immortal) ● Hulk (Ragnarok) ● Human Torch ● Invisible Woman ● Jessica Jones ● Joe Fixit ● Luke Cage ● M.O.D.O.K. ● Mister Fantastic ● Mister Negative ● Morbius ● Photon ● Quake ● Quicksilver ● Red Guardian ● Red Hulk ● Rhino ● Sandman ● Scorpion ● Sentry ● She-Hulk ● She-Hulk (Deathless) ● Silk ● Spider-Gwen ● Spider-Ham ● Spider-Man (Classic) ● Spider-Man (Miles Morales) ● Spider-Man 2099 ● Spider-Punk ● Spot ● The Overseer ● Thing ● Titania ● Void ● Wasp ● Yellowjacket
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 List of Mighty Avengers Champions
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Blade  ● Captain America (Sam Wilson)  ● Luke Cage ● Photon ● She-Hulk ● White Tiger 
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 List of Thunderbolts Champions
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Abomination ● Agent Venom ● America Chavez ● Baron Zemo ● Bullseye ● Crossbones ● Deadpool  ● Doctor Octopus ● Electro ● Elektra ● Ghost ● Ghost Rider ● Hawkeye ● Iron Patriot ● Juggernaut ● Kraven ● Lady Deathstrike ● Luke Cage ● Man-Thing ● Photon ● Punisher ● Red Guardian ● Red Hulk ● Rhino ● Taskmaster ● Winter Soldier
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