Happy 2021 everyone! Let’s kick off the New Year with yet another Pocket Paragons design blog! Today’s blog is a quick sneak peek by Brian McKay featuring our current test build of Maypul, the Sylvan Watcher.
Disclaimer: Maypul’s kit is still a work-in-progress and may feature changes and updates in the final product.
Maypul is a very quick and powerful character with powerful reach that turns even the slightest mistake from an opponent into a deadly combo kill. Her Watcher’s Mark traps the opponent and doesn’t allow them to escape her rush down onslaught!
Maypul is also unanimously the Class President for Life, but we try not to talk about that.
Character Strengths:
- High damage output and can protect herself pretty well
- Passive is easy to enable, especially with counters and against Rest
Character Weakness:
- Abilities are weak without Boost
- Getting the initial Boost power rolling is tough, and you have to start it back up after you whiff or Rest
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, all the Rivals characters are still undergoing a lot of playtesting and the images here may not match her final set of abilities. Maypul’s kit is built around her passive. Dealing more damage to the opponent puts the Watcher’s Mark on them, allowing your abilities to be boosted in power. And these boosts often allow you to deal more damage, which triggers the passive again! Keep the momentum going, as it’s your clearest path to victory!
Lily is your big Boost payoff, and 4 damage is a huge hit while practically guaranteeing another Boost for the followup round. Slingshot may not look like much, but if you hit them for 1 while they hit you for 0, that’s another Boost for next round as well! These two are your best ways of keeping up the pressure once you have it, so keep that in mind while choosing abilities when you don’t have Boost.
Swift Dash doesn’t do a lot of damage, but by blocking 1 you can still come out ahead. Try to line this up against enemy abilities that do 1 damage. You’ll get the Boost for next round, and usually deny Hit effects (which are common on 1-damage attacks). Seed Toss’s Pierce lets you help get in chip damage, but I want to especially point out its usefulness against characters from the other boxes that have Defend abilities. If they Defend and you pierce them with Seed Toss, you’ve dealt more damage to them than they did to you, so you get to Boost if you read their block correctly!
With most characters, when you play an ability that forces your enemy to exhaust, you could get soft-countered by a Rest. Your exhaust effect hits first, then they ready the ability they just exhausted back up with the Rest, since Rest happens at the end of the round. Maypul doesn’t have that problem. If they play Rest the turn you play your exhausting ability… they just die. As a tradeoff, you can’t use your exhausting ability to help set up an Execute later on, but it can help you find a safe Rest for yourself.
One final note– in tournament play, Maypul’s Boost abilities are cross-compatible with other characters that use Boost in their kits, so check out the other Boost setups and payoffs other boxes offer for new strategies! Passing your Lily ability to Mr. F lets him take care of her with his Photosynthesis passive. Rowan’s Swiftness is incredibly strong if you give it to a character who can activate Boost easier, like Maypul! Even without Boost synergy, you might want to ship some strong attacks from other characters to Maypul just to help her trigger her passive easier!
-Brian Mckay
Thanks for tuning our first Pocket Paragons design blog of the New Year! We hope to see you at the next one!